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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536831">Scorched</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbvanth/pseuds/cobbvanth'>cobbvanth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Narcos (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age Difference, Alcohol, Alcoholism/Substance Abuse, Cock Warming, Depression, Descriptions of blood and injury, F/M, Gun Kink, Hair-pulling, Mental Health Issues, One Night Stands, Post-Divorce, Smoking, Smut, Unprotected Sex, anger issues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:21:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536831</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbvanth/pseuds/cobbvanth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>divorced and alone, the only obvious resolution to Steve's mid-life crisis is to hook-up with the DEA bait girl. </p><p>too bad he hadn't foreseen actually liking her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Murphy (Narcos)/Reader, Steve Murphy (Narcos)/You, Steve Murphy x Reader, Steve Murphy x You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. scorched</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tequila stings - burns like little embers in your nostrils, coats the back of your throat and makes you scrunch up your nose as it goes down and you do your best not to cough like some light weight rookie. It tastes terrible, though, treacly and sweet with just enough of an acetone carryover to have you wishing you never downed it in the first place, but you like the warmth it brings to your body - the kind of fuzziness that blankets your mind - keeping it from thinking too hard about meaningless things like <em>consequences. </em></p>
<p>But it’s hard, okay - it’s hard because you are a rookie - barely over the legal limit fraternizing with a whole bunch of people that have got a lifetime of experience on you. </p>
<p>And Steve is - </p>
<p>He’s - </p>
<p>He’s downing his fifth shot of the night, leaning against the counter, long legs tucked against the lowest rung of the bar-stool with his shirt stretching tight over his shoulders - broad and big and laughing about something, blonde hair stuck up in some places where he’s been running his fingers through it, his cheeks flushed a nice rosy red color and you want to just fucking kiss him, okay? </p>
<p>Just want to be near him and share his space and maybe even talk to him too if you’ve got the guts and it’s embarrassing. It’s so fucking embarrassing because he’s this fucking rock-star DEA agent from Tennessee with just enough charisma to charm the pants off of you and just enough hard-hitting authority to make you and your stupid fucking daddy issues want that to happen. </p>
<p>It’s too much for your slushed, smoothed, unwrinkled drunken brain to process. </p>
<p><em>He’s</em> too much. </p>
<p>You adjust the straps of your dress and shift in your seat, not entirely sure what you’re still doing here. The way your face burns saying otherwise. </p>
<p>The music playing is ridiculous too - some repetitive funk song from the seventies. You’d prefer that at least a greatest hit or something from this decade was serving as the soundtrack to your downward spiral, but you’ve got more pressing issues than Boogie Oogie Oogie. </p>
<p>Like the fact that you can’t stop looking at him, finding yourself glancing to your right every few seconds -  catching his profile in your periphery, watching like some weirdo as his mouth rounds against the lip of his drink - how his adam’s apple dips when he swallows, perspiration making his skin glow in shades of blue and yellow in the dim, bleeding neon lighting. Swarming with feelings that far surpass the boundaries of respect and admiration. </p>
<p>You’ve known him for what - all of fifty seconds? Probably like thirty-six maybe forty-eight hours in actuality - not a lot of time for these feelings to really be understandable. His boss or team or group or <em>whatever</em> - it doesn’t matter, you weren’t really paying attention when they briefed you, sent him scouting; needed someone young and pretty and just innocent and naive enough to not really question their decisions to serve as a distraction in a minor interference - trying to catch some low level criminal or get information - you hadn’t been paying much attention to that either - but you were told you wouldn’t be in any danger and that Steve would be with you the entire time. </p>
<p>So here you are - successful and celebrating, caught in a haze of cheap cologne and loud barks of male laughter, getting wasted on alcohol that tastes like you’re drinking nail polish remover, pining over a man twice your age who you’re almost positive has no more interest in you than he would something that’s surpassed its use.</p>
<p>“You know, sweetheart…if you want me to buy you a drink, all you gotta do is ask. It ain’t polite to stare.” </p>
<p>Oh, you think - shocks of awareness tensing your shoulders. <em>Shit. </em></p>
<p>The room suddenly feels far too small - like each far side wall is starting to slide forward, towards each other, the ceiling lowering to meet them. </p>
<p>You go still. Your heart lurches, esophagus constricting in embarrassment, and suddenly the bar is the most interesting thing in the fucking world - with its built up peanut shell dust and imperfect varnish from too many elbows rubbing at the wood. You scratch your thumbnail against a part of the wood that’s starting to chip away, tiny splinters breaking under your efforts, hoping that if you just ignore what he’s said that he’ll let it go, leave you be and you can go on pretending like you hadn’t just been caught red handed. </p>
<p>But you aren’t that lucky. </p>
<p>“I know you hear me.” You’d been so focused on <em>not</em> focusing on him that you hadn’t noticed the way he got up when he saw you turn away, hadn’t noticed the way he sidled up next to you and grabbed the free bar-stool by its top, placed it a little closer to you than it was before and sat down and it’s - </p>
<p>It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous and stupid that you’re even here to begin with, having agreed to something and gone through with it without fully understanding the terms, <em>if you were even being paid or what kind of future danger it would put you in. </em></p>
<p>Except those things don’t matter right now - future problems for your future self. And you aren’t stupid, not really, it’s just something about this man that makes any common sense floating around in your head fizzle out and die with a pop of radio static. </p>
<p>You hadn’t noticed a lot of things apparently because his sudden proximity startles you, so close that you could share the very air in front of his face, heat coming off of him in dangerously enticing waves. And the worst part is that you can’t bring yourself to move - can’t look at him, either, but no matter how your stupid little conscious yells at you to back away before you get into something you’re unable to finish you can’t get yourself to stand or move seats or even fucking <em>breathe</em> because he smells good too; like sandalwood and shaving cream and kind of like cigarettes except that it isn’t gross - just adds to the intense, foolish desire pooling low in your belly and hot in your chest. </p>
<p>“Please don’t. Just let me pretend that didn’t happen…” You plead, voice tiny and shy and you wish you were braver - wish that you could be one of those people that has enough confidence to admit that they had been checking someone out, but you’re not and Steve’s acknowledgement of it isn’t helping. Neither is the buzzing in your stomach that feels like a low current of electricity, and you’re not sure if it’s a good feeling or not - if you should be concerned about the effect he’s having on you, but it doesn’t matter - not when he’s still talking, low and heavy with the weight of his accent. </p>
<p>“Now,” he drawls, near enough to you that your shoulders touch, your biceps brushing against each other in a movement that has your skin electrifying. “Why should I do that? Clearly you got somethin’ going on in that pretty little head of yours otherwise you wouldn’t be lookin’ at me the way you have been for the last half hour.” </p>
<p>His words hang in the air, loose and dragging in your head, swaying like weeds in water against your skull. You hadn’t just been caught - <em>he’s known</em>, has probably known far before right now too after it took all of your self-control and willpower to act like a normal functioning person when you first met. You aren’t really sure what you expected of a man whose survival depends largely on his ability to take in his surroundings, but this wasn’t it. </p>
<p>Steve sighs, orders himself a beer then reaches for the wooden bowl holding peanuts and cracks one of the shells between his thumb and pointer finger. You watch, following his movements, and for a second all your drudged brain can focus on is the sound of it snapping. He’s got nice hands - <em>such nice hands. </em></p>
<p>Then he’s turning his head and you can’t help but meet his gaze, so you turn your head too and face him and it feels like he’s analyzing you; almost dissecting, trying to see to your very core and picking away at the pieces he encounters and normally it would make you want to move away, out from under the person’s microscope, but his is cut with an undercurrent of something you can’t identify - something amused, something pleased, nearly the same way an adult would be when gifted with a crude drawing filled with good intentions. <em>You shouldn’t start somethin’ you can’t handle</em>, it says.  </p>
<p>He’s so much more handsome up close. </p>
<p>So when you lick your lips, trying to act like he isn’t setting you aflame and letting you melt, he smiles a little more - crooked and boyish - and there’s that fucking charm. That irresistible ‘good ole southern boy’ in him that makes you want to scream, makes you want to do so many filthy things that sometimes you worry about yourself and your well-being. You wish he’d stop talking, every sentence out of his mouth restarting the timer to regaining your coherence. </p>
<p>“Shit, maybe I’m imaginin’ it…I don’t think I am, but” he’s getting up, pushing himself up and off the bar and away from you and <em>no no no no</em>. “If this isn’t what you want, have a good night.” </p>
<p>He’s standing, more like fucking hovering next to you, the middle of his chest against your shoulder - letting his words sink in, letting himself linger and you feel like he could eat you whole if he wanted to; you’d let him, give him anything he wanted and if that makes you pathetic or weak or just like - fucking stupid, you don’t care. They stick to you - they’re meaning, what he’s actually saying - flickering around the edges of your thoughts, insinuating themselves to the ends of them like waning ghosts and not for the first time tonight you’re left with nothing but a head filled with desire and warmth. </p>
<p>But you must take longer than you think to answer because he’s actually moving away now, grabbing his beer by its rim and thanking the bartender, so when you shift in your seat, going to look up at his face you’re left staring at empty air, left flushing and changing course again, calling out to the sweeping slopes of his back. </p>
<p>“I never said that.” </p>
<p>Your sentence is a brave thing - floats in the space between his body and yours - and you chew the inside of your bottom lip to keep yourself from retracting it somehow, from reaching into the air and grabbing it.  </p>
<p>Steve stops. You can see his head duck, lower just a little bit as he looks down at the bar floor, and you think that maybe you can hear him chuckling or just notice the way his chest shakes but before you can really think about it he’s facing you again - a hint of smugness in his expression, looking at you from down the bridge of his nose. </p>
<p>“No?”  </p>
<p>His voice is like syrup, making your brain feel sticky and sluggish, every syllable of what you might say caught in the web of piteous lust and foolish candor building and weaving itself in your larynx. You’re magma, bubbling and boiling underneath the heat of his gaze. And now that you’ve got his attention again, you feel like you’re about to just fucking blow up the way a volcano would - solidfying and petrifying into lava. </p>
<p>“No I-” you repeat, tongue thick in your mouth, lightheaded. “I never said that.” </p>
<p>He’s getting closer again, setting his drink down, standing right in front of you as tall and unwavering as a fucking oak and it feels like you’ll never recover - mouth dry, head empty, an uncomfortable ache settling between your legs that has you squeezing your knees together.  </p>
<p>“So this <em>is</em> somethin’ that you want. Is that what you’re tellin’ me?” </p>
<p>“Y-yeah,” you confirm, nodding, only able to begin imagining how you must look to him right now - nervous and stuttering, wide-eyed and pliable. “That’s what I’m telling you.” </p>
<p>“Good…because if I’m bein’ honest, and I’m always honest, sweetheart, I haven’t been able to keep my eyes off ‘a you for a goddamn minute since we met.” </p>
<p>Any oxygen in your lungs leaves immediately - expelled in a shuddering, pitiful, longing sigh that has him tucking your hair behind your ear and twisting the ends with his fingers. </p>
<p>“Really?” </p>
<p>You’ve totally given up attempting to be coy or sexy because it would be disingenuous, already so wrapped around his fingers that it would just be an insult to him and to yourself trying to be anything else.  You just hope he doesn’t take your bewilderment for something else. </p>
<p>“I just told you I never lie, didn’t I?” His breath fans against your face, blue eyes skimming your features, taking in your expression, something warm and soft gathering in his cerulean irises.  </p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah, he did. And you know it’s horseshit but you’re leaning into it anyway, incapable of any deeper thought than what’s on the surface. You’re aware enough to know that these encounters are always messy; both sides wounded in the aftermath but neither ever seeming to know what had hit it or how to avoid another collision. But it’s the moments before, the moments leading up to the consistent and awkward plummet, that make people reckless - causes these ‘car accidents,’ these impacts - because when someone has taken up every part of your thought process that they become the very frequency in which your brain functions these moments take on their own viscosity, exist on their own planets. And for the duration of your time together, the configurations and shapes of the universe collapse and fall away. </p>
<p>“Kiss me.” Steve sits down, leans forward, nose bumping against your own, long blond lashes blinking against his cheeks. </p>
<p>Air rattles inside you like stones, and if you weren’t already sitting you’re sure that you would have collapsed. You can’t tell if it’s the tequila that’s making the bar spin or his instruction but either way you feel like you might lose your hold on the world entirely if you don’t do something quick. </p>
<p>So you listen - tilting your chin up to meet him - and the kiss is slow, unrushed and testing. The buzzing is back, not that it ever really left - but it’s stronger now, growing exponentially, intense enough to crawl its way through the muscles of your abdomen - radiating like sparking tendrils of a bare live wire down your thighs; constant and tense to the point where you can no longer manage to snuff it out. Kissing him feels nice. </p>
<p>“Don’t be shy, sweetheart. I’m not gonna bite unless you want me to.” He murmurs, his hand - so much bigger than your smaller, softer one - moving to grab the rounding edges of your seat and it takes everything in you not to yelp in surprise as you’re being abruptly dragged forward; your knees knocking against his until he spreads his legs, letting you rest between them. </p>
<p>“Steve-” </p>
<p>Maybe you’re imagining it but the air is warmer now - sort of the same way a room can get with hot water running - all steamed up and murky and now that you’ve kissed him, you can longer even pretend to be fixated on anything else; the other patrons turning into silhouettes, the music drowned out by the blood rushing in your ears. </p>
<p>“You wanna go home with me?” He asks it so easily, so confidently, that it’s like he doesn’t know the shit storm that would hit him if any of the higher up brass caught wind of this tryst - like he isn’t compromising a whole bunch of shit and breaking a whole bunch of rules. The operation might be over, but there’s still other hoops to jump through, other mind numbing processes and hearings and interviews and fucking <em>paperwork</em> to fill out - but he’s willing to take that risk, can’t really help himself although nothing serious has happened yet and he’s giving you another out if you want it. He’s certain you won’t take it, and there lies his true sin. </p>
<p>Steve waves the bartender over as you contemplate your answer, buys you another drink - something rich looking and far more appealing than the chemical tasting liquid you had been downing - then pays for your tab; not that it was expensive to begin with, but just the very action of it has you rising to your feet before you’re able to make any rational, well-informed decision, grabbing the tiny shot glass and throwing it back and downing it all in one go then looking at him - expectant and eager. </p>
<p>“Yes, please.” </p>
<p>He looks you up and down, fucking grins like he has been all night, and takes your hand. “Great. Let’s go.” </p>
<p>He guides you out of the bar, keeps you in front of him as he pushes past people - and they just part for him, too - a head or more above them, his hand at the small of your back. Outside, across the street, sits his land cruiser reflecting like a dark blue beetle beneath the streetlamps. You’re glad to be away from all the noise, all the people, and the suffocating feeling of being constricted, but seeing his car makes everything more real, anchoring you to reality - to the fact that this is actually happening, that in just a few short steps, a turn of your heads left to right, you’ll be sitting next to him, headed towards his apartment. </p>
<p>And you aren’t sure if the idea of that thrills or scares you. </p>
<p>You get to the passenger’s side and you stand there watching his reflection in the car window as Steve reaches around you and opens the door, catching your hip with his hand as he leans, heavy and impossibly hot against your back. And it hurts you want him so bad, unfair really, what he’s doing to you because you’re magma again, spilling out over his feet and onto the concrete sidewalk. </p>
<p>So when you get into the car you and the door clicks shut you aren’t surprised to find that it feels super-heated, like an overcharged battery, making you rub your legs against the leather seating uncomfortably as you fight the urge to take off your coat. </p>
<p>Then he gets in too, looks at you for a long moment before reaching over and grabbing you by the back of the neck, pulling you into another kiss that’s so overwhelming you gasp when he leans away. </p>
<p>He puts his keys into the ignition and takes the car out of park.</p>
<p>You ignore the way your hands shake as you put on your seatbelt.</p>
<p>However the palm he places on your thigh doesn’t help alleviate anything at all, the fever of it only waning when he goes to switch gears. </p>
<p>You sit like that, suffering the pressure of his touch and the mess of your own running thoughts, until the cruiser pulls up to a wide series of apartment complexes, each the same as the last; rows of them lining the street, dotted by brown garage doors and a set of steps leading to the front door. And Steve pulls into the driveway and you think that normally he’d get out and unlock the garage then get back in and actually park his car, but not tonight - the second he pulls in and his foot is on the break the vehicle is being shut off, the keys rattling against each other in light ‘pings.’ </p>
<p>You undo your buckle, having to summon your brain - remind it that it controls your body and that you can’t just sit there and wait for him to make a move to react. </p>
<p>Steve’s already out and rounding the front by the time you’re reaching for the door handle. You step out into the cool air thick with tension, look around at the neighborhood - register dimly that there’s a dog barking somewhere and that the lights are brighter on this side of the street, but it’s all just background noise to the blank slate of static ringing in your ears as you follow him up the steps and through the threshold of the lobby, the flimsy looking white metal door shutting behind you with a creak. </p>
<p>You get to the landing before he’s on you again. </p>
<p>He lets you climb a step, still not enough to make you even eye level with him and fuck - <em>why is he so tall</em> - then he’s backing you up against the cool blue plaster wall, artificial light creeping through the window casting your shadows along the floor. </p>
<p>Steve dips his head, drags his lips up the column of your neck, smirks against your skipping and stuttering pulse point, then presses a kiss to the space just under your ear. “You wanna know why I picked you, honey?”</p>
<p>You say his name because that’s all you seem to be able to get out, slightly breathless, and either he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care because he keeps talking, his voice dropping lower as he leans in to close the space between your bodies. “Because you’re the prettiest damn thing I’ve ever fucking seen. And I knew that if I didn’t, I’d regret it every day for the rest of my goddamn life.” </p>
<p>“Didn’t know what you were doin’ to me, did you?” He adds, a rough and quiet whisper. “Hell, maybe you did and that’s why you kept on battin’ those eyelashes at me. What do you think, baby? Am I wrong?” </p>
<p><em>Oh God - what is happening?</em> It’s like he’s covering you with a second skin, embedded in every curve and dip and if you weren’t pinned by his chest you’d bring your forefingers to your clavicles, willing the sensation to come to the surface. </p>
<p>You don’t know how to respond, or even if you can. The remaining tatters of your dignity are close to disintegrating and breaking down completely, positive your skull has turned into no more than a bowl harboring your soupy brain. You had no fucking clue, but you doubt the truth matters to him right now, asking only to get a rise out of you and it’s working - the ache in your cunt growing restless, the wall behind you abrasive against your blistering sensitive skin, all of your senses working in over time and failing miserably at processing or comprehending what’s happening. </p>
<p>“Christ, <em>I wanna fuck you so bad, honey.</em> You gonna let me?” His voice is different now, husky and warm and it vibrates in your chest, makes you shiver and your mouth drop a little and for a second it feels like your lungs are paralyzed. You’ve got to force yourself to speak and it’s like you’re relearning how to talk altogether, your consent coming out in a dismal whine and a nod of your head. </p>
<p>It’s enough. Everything he needs to start hauling you up the steps, the curve of them awkward as you try to keep pace, but it doesn’t take him long to get you to the top and his door is already right there, and only about three seconds pass between your feet landing on solid ground and  the door being unlocked before he’s pushing you through it and leading you through the living room, stripping himself of his jacket and shoes and you follow his lead - serving as some sort of illicit breadcrumbs trailing your path through to his bedroom.  </p>
<p>Then he’s pulling you into a kiss that’s messy and a little bit frantic as he backs you up through unfamiliar territory with one hand on your hip and the other at the back of your head, curling in your hair. </p>
<p>You catch glimpses of your surroundings on your way; a shelf in front of the windows with books and picture frames on its shelves,  a plant in the corner, a coffee table, a lamp - noticing very briefly in your cloudy mind that his place is neat, organized, and far nicer than what you had expected. You’ve got to let those go - you register - these expectations, because every single one of them you have about him Steve seems to be breaking. </p>
<p>His bedroom is dark, smells like him too, his bed against the middle wall and when you get to the edge of the mattress you let him unzip your dress, the fabric falling away from your shoulders and pooling around your ankles. His lips never leave yours, tasting like whiskey and ozone and like all of your bad decisions and it makes you feel off-balance because things like this aren’t supposed to be this good and the pressure in your lower abdomen is gaining a pulse, but of course he is - with his crooked smile and smooth southern cadence, so unbearably attractive and sure of himself - </p>
<p>But you keep kissing him anyway, even as he grabs your hand and guides it palm first to the bulge of his cock in his jeans and lets out a shallow, strained groan against your lips. It’s big and it’s warm and it’s hard and you’re nervous - running on the bravery of whatever tequila is left in your system, not sure you should be doing what you’re doing but not at all willing to back down either, caught between your inexperience and a need so bad that it’s making you shake. So you don’t stop - keep going because he tastes good and he <em>feels </em>good too and he wants you to touch him and the very idea of it sends a jolt of pleasure through your gut. </p>
<p>“Wanna try somethin’ tonight, baby.” Steve’s speaking, still so close that his lips skim against yours as his mouth moves. “But you gotta trust me.” </p>
<p>Your heart feels like it’s beating so fast that it’s going to stop, your mind equally as useless, unable to even begin deciphering what he could mean. </p>
<p>Not that you have a chance because he’s asking you a question, repeating it when all it does the first time is echo against the empty cavern of your head - your body running purely on something primal, something hot and bursting. </p>
<p>“Hmm? Do you trust me?” </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <b>Yes - </b>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No. </em>
</p>
<p>You aren’t really sure - he had kept you alive but that was his job; couldn’t exactly let anything else happen if he valued his salary and freedom. He hasn’t given you a reason not to trust him, though. And even if that might be the weakest argument to make in his favor you’re going with it anyway. </p>
<p>“Y-yes. Yes, I trust you.” You answer, not sure if you should be interested or frightened - not sure of a lot of things. </p>
<p>“<em>Good</em>. That’s good, sweetheart.”  He says as you move your hand away to undo his belt, fumbling with it, the metal clinking together like a firecracker followed by a rasp of leather as he yanks it through their loops, the air filled with the sharp sound of his zipper as you strip him of his jeans. Then you’re stepping out of your underwear and he’s reaching behind you to unclasp your bra and everything is suddenly moving so fast that you can barely keep up with him so it takes you like - a fucking hot second to realize that you’re naked in front of him now and so is he, your toes curling against the wooden floors. </p>
<p>It should bother you. It should make you a little uncomfortable. He’s this man you just met. This person you don’t know. </p>
<p>But it doesn’t. </p>
<p>His hand returns to your hair, stroking through it, pulling you into his lap as he goes to sit down on the bed and <em>how could you have not noticed the way he was looking at you before</em>? Blue eyes adoring, as if he wants to memorize every part of your face. Easily disguising his hunger. </p>
<p>The mattress dips beneath his weight and you grab at his shoulders to keep yourself steady, his chuckle heated against your collarbone, his cock hot and thick pressed up between your stomachs. He’s a lot bigger than you thought he’d be, not all the way hard but getting there and you reach for it, squeeze tentatively around the base of it and it throbs in time with his gasp and the rasping moan that follows. </p>
<p>“Fucking    <em><b>shit</b></em> -” Steve hisses through his teeth, his fingers shooting to your hair again, tightens and pulls - not enough to hurt but enough to make your scalp prickle. “What are you doin’ here, baby? I’m not lookin’ to be teased.” </p>
<p>It’s not really a question but it’s not really a command and for the first time you comply without fleetingly wondering what’s happening, wrapping your hand around his cock as he mouths at your breasts and suddenly there are no thoughts in your head - none at all, replaced with the feel of him in your palm and the way he rocks his hips upwards. The dull pounding in your cunt is starting to turn painful, the good, addicting kind that converts your blood into gasoline and sets it on fire. Steve’s lips and the absence of them in places he’s already kissed make you shiver, his murmurs against the soft and supple tissue filthy and soaked in the drawling measure of his accent, perfect and abundant and <em>God</em> -  </p>
<p>He’s lifting you up by your waist, your hand falling away to press into his bicep, catching your pussy against the head of his cock and you’re clumsy and sloppy and slow and you know this but he doesn’t seem to care, rocking your hips backwards and then forwards, stripping moans from deep within your chest like he was reaching down your throat and ripping them out. </p>
<p>“Steve,” you whine, fierce and plaintive and it’s all he needs to have you turning, making eye-contact for a brief electric second before his chest against your back and he’s bringing you down onto his cock - big and calloused palms gliding up the sides of your body, across your rib cage, up to your breasts where he cups them and then <em>squeezes</em>, twisting your nipples between his fingers. </p>
<p>“God fucking damn, honey.” Steve groans, his forehead dropping to your shoulder, his breath coming out in stilted huffs against your already too hot too delicate skin. “Who knew you’d be this good, huh? Better than I fuckin’ imagined.” </p>
<p>You keen and clench around him, trying to get used to the sensation of being stretched, pried open and filled to bursting - your nervous system replaced with a network of fucking landmines, paralyzing your lungs and sending sparkling pleasure pain along every cell. </p>
<p>“Keep still, baby. Relax. You’re doin’ so well. Stay just like that.” </p>
<p>You want so bad to move, to gain some friction, but it pales in comparison to the possibility of disappointing him. </p>
<p>His mouth and tongue are white-hot as he sucks a mark onto the curve of your jaw, has you curling and uncurling your hands into frustrated fists grasping at nothing before you finally just dig your fingernails into the meat of your thighs, desperate for any kind of sensation that’ll relieve you of your focus on the way his cock pulses inside you. </p>
<p>This was what he was talking about - what he wanted you to trust him with - and if you knew how <em>torturous</em> it would be you wouldn’t have agreed, would have told him to fuck off or to fuck you or <em>something</em> - anything different than the thundering of your pulse. </p>
<p>“Perfect…and so fuckin’ pretty too. <em>Jesus</em>.” He murmurs, his voice shaking with restraint as he pushes your hair away to expose your throat and he’s -</p>
<p>And he’s saying something else but you can hardly tell, can hardly bring yourself to keep your eyes open, can hardly even breathe with the coil that’s wounding like a tightly coiled piece of wired copper and you just want him to move so <b><em>bad.</em></b> </p>
<p>“Steve,” your throat feels thick with the lump that’s growing inside it, his name choked and whiney and lamenting. “I-I can’t-<em> please</em>.” </p>
<p>“Just a lil’ while longer, honey. You’re alright. I’m right here.” </p>
<p>The praise makes you blush, chest and neck creeping with warmth. Steve moves just a fraction and you wish that you could see his face - see any of him aside from what you can catch of his reflection in the window in front of you across the room, just so that you can tell if he’s as affected by this as you are, if he’s squeezing his eyes shut or clenching his jaw or burning up as much as a <em>fragment </em>as you are.  His watch must be uncomfortable against his wrist - sweat gathering underneath, rubbing; the same way you feel pressed against him, sticky and compounded and flushed. </p>
<p>You want to be good. You want to be so good for him. </p>
<p>But with each prolonged, asphyxiating moment that passes you’re finding it harder to control yourself. </p>
<p>“I’m gonna touch you now, baby, but you gotta keep sittin’ still.” </p>
<p>You could cry with relief. It doesn’t matter how hard that’ll be, how impossible, because at least he’ll be moving. </p>
<p>You clench down on his cock in response to his fingertips alone - his rough and large palms smoothing down your stomach like he’s trying to calm you down but it only makes it worse, your heart constricted with each breath getting harder than the last and then he’s moving down over your body further and you’re burning up, dissolving as his fingers stroke over your clit and it’s like a fucking <em>bomb</em> goes off - except he’s prepared for it, wraps an impossibly strong forearm around your waist to keep you pinned. </p>
<p>“Shh,” he pants. “I got you, sweetheart.” </p>
<p>It’s catastrophic, high strung and good, too good, and you can feel it in your belly and in your spine, blinding and sharp and overwhelming. You won’t be able to take much more of this and if there was enough of your brain left functioning you’d be a little embarrassed at how high-strung you already are. </p>
<p>Then he rocks into you hard, snapping his hips upwards in a movement you can’t tell was voluntary or not, but he doesn’t really stop after that so it doesn’t fucking matter, his head tilted back and his mouth half-open, every sound coming from him gutted and soft and warm and stoking like a poker at the cinders of your pleasure. </p>
<p>You tremble, rocking back against him and crying out and resting your head against his shoulder to stifle the sounds that he’s forcing out of you, his fingers never skipping a beat, swiping over the hyper-sensitive bundle of nerves until your arousal turns acute and pointed, liable to snap you in half like a crack in thin ice. </p>
<p>And you can’t understand why it isn’t enough until you’re saying his name, realizing that he had slowed down - rubbing at your clit in gentle, sweet motions, and it’s somehow worse now than it was before and all you want to do is <em>come.</em> </p>
<p>“‘S’alright. Be patient.” </p>
<p>“I <em>can’t</em>.” You sob, unable to understand how he expects you to be when he doesn’t stop the careful movements of his fingers, when he doesn’t give you enough respite to even try to fight through the fog in your mind or formulate comprehensible thoughts. </p>
<p>“I’ll give you what you want soon, baby. Focus on me.” Steve answers, cupping your jaw, turning your head and pressing his mouth to yours in a kiss that isn’t really a kiss and is more like shared breathing, shared moans and gasps and<em> oh fuck</em>, you think - you can feel yourself becoming more attached to him than intended and perhaps that’s what he wanted with this little experiment in the first place but there’s no way of knowing that right now - not as his cock drags slightly against the walls of your cunt and there’s this bee-sting of pressure on your clit. </p>
<p>“Please,” you finally manage, voice catching over the rounding of your teeth. “‘M so close, Steve.” You grind your hips into his and choke on a gasp because he’s so deep and it’s fucking delicious but it still isn’t enough. </p>
<p>You can feel the creeping edges of your orgasm approaching and think miserably that he isn’t going to come - not like this, anyway - and he’s going to keep going after you come and it’s going to be too much - you’re going to break in half and just cease to fucking exist and the tapering notion of that alone as it floats through your consciousness is enough to have you grasping at the arm he’s wrapping around around your middle again, nails digging into the flesh. </p>
<p>“Yeah,” he answers, “Sure, honey. You’ve been a good girl. I’ll give you what you want.” </p>
<p>You arch your back as he applies more pressure and he wrenches you into another kiss - a more solid one this time, making your head spin and your cunt spasm, drawing every sound and reaction and sob from you so easily you’re almost certain he’d be capable of taking your fucking soul if he wanted it. </p>
<p>Saying you hadn’t offered it to him first. </p>
<p>There’s so much pleasure - so much happening - that it almost hurts, and you whimper, tell him in words you can barely recognize as your own voice that he’s going to destroy you but he doesn’t stop and you’re almost positive that you don’t want him to, anything better than the crushing tension building in your belly being left to build unabated. </p>
<p>“C’mon, baby. I know you feel it.” Steve croons and you <em>shatter. </em></p>
<p>Bite down on the spongy inside of your cheek until you’re sure that it’ll be shredded and bleeding by the time you’re able to relax, Steve whispering senseless praise into the curve of your neck, working you through it until you’re overwhelmed and then well past it - until you’re just fucking<em> gone</em> - strangled under the gravity of your pleasure. And it’s like it’ll go on forever, caught infinitely in a never-ending loop but then he’s fucking up into you in earnest, pistoning his hips into the cradle of your thighs, filling the air with the sinful smack of skin against skin until he’s groaning and shuddering and faltering, coming with a long drawn-out and wrecked groan. </p>
<p>You collapse against him, lie there for a long time as the atmosphere goes still and for the first time tonight you get the chance to really take in your surroundings. He’s solid behind you, comforting in a weird kind of way you hadn’t expected from a stranger. His room is just as nice as the living room had been. You wonder why. </p>
<p>“You okay?” </p>
<p>You lift your head, crane your neck to look back at him and smile just a little - filled with a familiar nervousness, the same that had hovered around you at the bar, only able to identify it now as the anxiousness that accompanies a blooming crush. </p>
<p>“I’m okay. Should I-” You look away from him to his floor, unsure what the protocol for something like this would be. “I should go.” </p>
<p>Steve chuckles, kisses your shoulder and you can hear it in his head, the ‘bless your heart’ you’re sure is about to come out of his mouth. </p>
<p>“What kind a’ man would I be if I kicked you out after fuckin’ you?” He questions, pushing your hair out of your face. “You’re tired. You should spend the night.” </p>
<p>“I don’t know, Steve. I don’t want to make you feel like-” </p>
<p>“Stay.” He says more firmly, raising his eyebrows and looking at you like you’d be stupid if you didn’t. When you shrink into yourself, he softens, then carefully guides you out of his lap. “Stay,” he repeats a little more gently. “I can take you home in the morning.” </p>
<p>“Alright,” you agree, letting him lay you down on the bed. “But I want breakfast.” </p>
<p>“Honey, the way this is goin’ I’m gonna owe you my goddamn life.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. out of the frying pan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning comes slowly, then all at once. </p><p>Yellow sunlight pours through the window behind his bed, casts his room in a sort of golden haze that catches filaments and dust, paints his sheets in a sea of light grey. You rub at your eyes, fight the urge to sneeze, feel Steve moving next to you, swatting at something. The white, sheer curtains he has hung doing absolutely nothing to keep the sunlight out, and when you glance up and over at them (wondering if  and why he hadn’t closed them), you notice that there’s a hairline fracture in glass, right next to the lock. </p><p>Mornings can be weird like that, bringing on this sort of surrealism that exists before the rest of the world wakes up. Makes you see things you hadn’t seen before. </p><p>Or maybe it’s just the tequila that’s missing and not so much about what’s gone unnoticed. </p><p>Steve’s alarm clock is going off, bright red numbers blinking and stating the time, the noise loud and grating and everything you’d rather not be enduring right now, knowing that if he doesn’t shut it off soon, it’ll switch over to the news - something you aren’t particularly interested in, either - loud voices predicting the weather forecast and explaining the news that had happened overnight, including the successful arrest of a known drug dealer linked to Pablo Escobar. </p><p>“This fuckin’ thing - pain in my ass -” Steve’s grunting, sitting up fully, slamming down on the snooze button so hard that the plastic rattles against the wood of his bed frame, plunging his bedroom into silence. </p><p>You lay there wide eyed, trying to decide if his behavior is worth laughing at. </p><p>“Uh…do you wake up every morning like this?” </p><p>“Shit.” Steve falls back on his elbow, looks at you and closes his eyes as he brings his right hand to his face, scrubs his mouth with it and exhales. “‘M sorry. Good morning.” </p><p>You gape at him for a second, the corners of your mouth twitching, then decide to cover it completely, trying to collect yourself before giggles pour through the cracks in your fingers. “Morning.” </p><p>He huffs, begins to laugh at himself, too, leaning back against the pillows. </p><p>“Was gonna let you sleep. Set my alarm early to shower.” </p><p>Steve looks up at his ceiling, wipes the corners of his eyes, then blinks a few times. Waking up next to someone had been something he got used to after marrying Connie, so when she left him it had been a process relearning his old patterns - reminding himself he doesn’t have to make the bed the way she likes it anymore because she isn’t there to see it - that he doesn’t need to have the sheets match the goddamn comforter (even though they do now and probably always will) and that if he really, truly didn’t want to or couldn’t be fucked, he didn’t have to sleep in this bed at all, or any bed for that matter. </p><p>Which is why, up until last night, he had been spending his nights on the couch. </p><p>“S okay, I guess. You promised me breakfast.” </p><p>Steve drops his hands to his sides, looks over at you, sort of smiling, studying your face. “I did.” He agrees. </p><p>“So…” You drawl, rolling onto your side, holding your head up with the palm of your right hand.  “Up and at ‘em, cowboy. I’m hungry.” </p><p>Your stint with him last night has made you braver, it seems. He had seen the most intimate parts of you, had drawn an almost unbelievable amount of trust from you, made you cry and beg and whine words so filthy that remembering them now is making you flush. And he’s lying there next to you, even though the alcohol is nothing more than a dull ache behind his eyelids, looking at you and smiling. </p><p>If you had known it would have come to this last night, you would have made your move sooner. </p><p>“You sure you don’t want to sleep just a lil’ bit longer?” </p><p>You make a face, tracing the wrinkles disrupting the sheets with your fingers. </p><p>“If I’m remembering correctly, Agent Murphy, you said that you’d give me your ‘entire goddamn life’ last night. I think it’s fair that I’m only asking for breakfast.”</p><p>Steve snorts, scrubs his face, but doesn’t say anything. </p><p>He had done and promised a whole lot last night. Regret isn’t a feeling he’s unfamiliar with, but it doesn’t quite match what he’s experiencing right now. Christ, he’s ashamed to admit he’d do it all over again in a goddamn heartbeat, if anything just to hear the way you say his name when he’s touching you, but he can’t bring himself to give you these expectations. Breakfast may seem trivial and hell, it’s probably the polite thing to do, except breakfast can open doors that are better to remain shut. </p><p>You’re young, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into being interested in him. He doesn’t wear his wedding ring anymore, but he’s still got the tan line, still rubs where it sat occasionally (some sort of comfort mechanism he developed among the course of his marriage), forgetting that everything it had meant means absolute shit-all now. Part of him, a part he can’t tell is growing larger or smaller, still loves his wife. He still misses her. Wishes she would come down from Miami, give him a chance to fix things. </p><p>So it’s cruel of him, to do be doing this, you just haven’t figured that out yet and he’s selfish - so fucking selfish - that he can’t really help himself. </p><p>“You remember?” You prompt when all he does is exhale, blond lashes blinking at you, blue eyes puffy with sleep. </p><p>Then he’s reaching for you, suddenly deciding in an act of impulse that he doesn’t really give a shit about being selfish right now, pulling you into his lap. “Maybe. Maybe not. I think you’ll have to jog my memory, baby.” </p><p>“You think so?”</p><p>“Yeah, I do.” He confirms, grin crooked and sneaky and entirely too handsome. </p><p>“Well…” you lean down, your nose brushing against his own. “If I’m remembering correctly, it was right after you buried your cock so deep in me I swear I thought I was gonna burst…” </p><p>Steve inhales sharply. His eyes go a shade darker. </p><p>“Then you asked me to stay…kissed my shoulder, laid me down…” You kiss the underside of his jaw, bracing yourself on his chest. “…said that if I kept making you feel this way, that good….” </p><p>Steve’s adam’s apple bobs, a day’s worth of stubble dotting the curves of his throat. You like that look, like the ruggedness it brings to his face. You like the feel of it even more. And he’s sliding his hands up from your lower back, up across your rib cage, then down again, every touch tender and sinful, about to grip the soft skin and flesh of hips -</p><p>But you’re sitting up, looking down at him and smiling, lips curling up into a half smirk Steve’s already figured out means nothing but trouble. </p><p>“That I’d owe you my entire goddamn life.” He says in unison with you, grabbing your wrists, making it so that you’re close to him again - his face inches from yours. “Who taught you to be so evil, honey?” </p><p>You look into his face, at his eyes, at his lips. Then lean in closer, closing your eyes, trying not to let the urge to laugh overtake your ability to fuck with him. </p><p>Steve tilts his chin forward and brushes his lips against yours in a movement that has your breath hitching and for a second you almost don’t do - you almost give in. </p><p>“I’m not evil, Mr. Murphy. I’m hungry.” </p><p>You’re rolling away from him, off of the bed and standing up before he can stop you, leaving him to deflate in his spot in the bed. </p><p>“That was mean.” </p><p>“What’s mean isn’t keeping your promises.” You throw back, searching for your clothing. </p><p>Steve rolls his eyes and sits up, watches you. </p><p>Christ, it hurts to look at you because he’s going to hurt you badly and he knows it. Part of him hopes that he’s just overthinking it. Putting too much thought into the way you feel about him, about the kind of attachment you feel towards him already, but he doesn’t think he is. You wouldn’t have let him do what he did last night if he were wrong. </p><p>That’s what makes this so horrible. This is what makes him irredeemable. This right here. </p><p>You. </p><p>The diner he takes you to is a quiet, Americanized little thing that he’s obviously familiar with, walking in with the confidence (and perhaps the worry, too) of a man that’s comfortable with his surroundings, the door opening and closing with the soft jingle of a bell situated at the very top of it’s frame. Steve places his keys in his jacket pocket, waits for you to step in front of him before leading you from behind down the aisle between the tables and the bar, towards a booth at the far end of the restaurant, faux leather - forest green and cracking in some areas, revealing the white stuffing - wrinkling beneath your weight as you sit. </p><p>“I don’t think my boss would like it if she found out I was eating at our competition.” You joke, smiling politely at one of the waitresses as she passes by you on her way to serve another customer. </p><p>Steve keeps his head down, glances at her very briefly as she passes. </p><p>“What?” He asks, looking up at you. </p><p>The atmosphere in the car had been filled with a weird tension, one that seems to have attached itself to the back of his neck, weighing down his shoulders. You had thought it was you - not really sure what to say to him, not really sure what to talk about - that had made him seem like he was somewhere else. You weren’t that serious about breakfast, could have gone without it and been happy, but now you’re beginning to wonder if it isn’t something else, something else compounded with the fact that he slept with you. </p><p>He didn’t even turn the stereo on. </p><p>“I don’t know if I should be insulted or worried.” You look at him, wondering how much he actually knows about you, which - granted - could be and probably is very little, but you had expected him to at least remember where you work, given that it was where they had met you, and where they operated the sting. </p><p>And, in a confusing turn of events, where he - some days - gets his coffees. Black. Picks up two of those pink sweet n low packets sometimes, flicking them so that the sugar is all at the bottom of one side. Then grabs one of the thin red stirrers and thanks you with a tight, exhausted smile. </p><p>“Right, yeah.” He exhales, leaning back. “You work at that uh coffee place a block or two down from the embassy.” </p><p>You grin slowly, nodding, somewhere between amused and disbelief. “You totally forgot.” </p><p>“I didn’t forget.” </p><p>“No.You forgot. You had to really think about that one.” </p><p>“I got it right, didn’t I?” </p><p>“Yeah, I guess you did, but it definitely took you a second.” </p><p>“Listen, I didn’t-” Steve continues, far more upset about this than your teasing warrants, placing his elbows on the table, getting closer to you than he needs to be to get his point across properly, ready to say something only to be interrupted by the waitress that had passed your table earlier. </p><p>“Morning, Steve. The usual for you? Can I get you something to drink?” </p><p>Steve closes his eyes, rubs them, then turns his head and looks at her. “Just a coffee for me, please. Whatever she wants, too.” He adds nearly as an afterthought. </p><p>You pretend it doesn’t sting as the waitress turns her gaze to you, looking like she’s fighting an expression that’s threatening to dominate her face - surprise, confusion - alarm, maybe, and you can only guess as to why. </p><p>“Water, please.” </p><p>“Great. I’ll be right back. Do you want any sugar in your coffee?” </p><p>“No, Maria. Thanks.” </p><p>“Right.” She says with a nod. “Tell Connie I said hi when you get the chance. We miss seeing her.” She adds, walking off. </p><p>Steve looks up towards the ceiling, closes his eyes. Of all the things for her to fucking say this morning, that just had to be one of them. </p><p>Then he’s opening them again. </p><p>And he says your name, reaches for you like he might take your hand, but you’ve placed your hands in your lap and have found a spot on the table that’s become the center of your focus. It isn’t that you had any falsehoods about Steve, about what this was leading to, that what was inevitably bound to happen was the swift departure of the agent from your life. You aren’t looking to be his girlfriend, had just helped immensely in a government operation that also happened to get you laid. </p><p>But the sting is still there. The stupid, foolish kind that accompanies an equally stupid and foolish crush. </p><p>“Who’s Connie?” </p><p>“My ex-wife.” </p><p>“Oh.” </p><p>“Yeah.” Steve agrees, his accent heavy on his tongue. </p><p>“How long…how long have you been separated?” </p><p>It somehow explains a lot about him and nothing at all. The apartment, the state that it’s in. His behavior, the way he had sidled up to you at that fucking bar. Maybe it can explain why he picked you, too. Someone so clearly out of her depth. You had no idea what to look for and so you didn’t. Now you’re stuck sitting across a table from a man that has way too much power over you. </p><p>“Kid…” He trails off, voice hoarse and low and you know it’s a warning, that you probably shouldn’t, and have no business, pushing, but you want to know what you’ve gotten yourself into, and exactly what crack you’ve filled in his life. </p><p>“Please.” </p><p>Steve licks his lips, gaze set out the window. “‘Three weeks and four days.” </p><p>Keeping count of the time that had followed signing the papers hadn’t been conscious at first. The days would tick and he would be aware that they had come and gone, but he had been so focused on trying not to drown that he never realized he had already hit the bottom of the pool. Then came the hyper fixation, the checking the calendar, keeping track of it like some fucked up anniversary. </p><p>Tally how long he’s been surviving without her. </p><p>And so the specificity of his answer has your mouth filling with static.  </p><p>You nod, chancing a glance at his profile and you hate that even now, even when you really should hate him most, you still find him so incredibly handsome - so much so that it makes your heart lurch - sympathy twisted indecipherable somewhere among your affection. </p><p>“I think you should take me home now, Steve.” </p><p>“I told you I would-” </p><p>“Take me home, Steve.” </p><p>Steve stops, looks at you from across the table, then finally nods before fishing his wallet out of his pocket. He opens it, places a few bills on the table as you scoot out of your seat, clearly doesn’t give a shit about getting the change, and steps out of the booth after you, not quite as eager to leave as you are or you had expected him to be, but you suppose this whole breakfast thing was just something he promised to make himself feel better about himself. </p><p>Which, God, it should make him a villain in your head, but it doesn’t. So maybe there’s something fucked up about you too that you just haven’t shown him yet and so maybe you can, in your dangerous naivety and too empathetic heart, try to fix him. Try to make him better, hoping he has the courtesy to do the same. </p><p>The drive is only somewhat more bearable, but that’s only because it’s shorter this time. You don’t ask him how he knows your address, smart enough to figure that he had read it in your file, and wise enough not to ask why he had it memorized. </p><p>He pulls up along the sidewalk flanking your apartment complex, places the car into park. All that fills the silence is the sound of the engine idling. </p><p>“I don’t uh…I don’t know what to say to you other than that this can’t happen again.” Steve begins, just brave enough to look at you for a few moments before turning his head back towards the windshield. “Usually there’s some bureaucratic bullshit I need to spit at you about your involvement with the DEA, about what to do and who to contact if you ever feel unsafe, but I…I figure we’re a lil’ past that…” </p><p>“A little?” Your chest shakes in what he thinks is a laugh and he can see that you’re smiling, but he knows it isn’t because you’re happy. He’s feeling just as bitter. </p><p>“Just-Just call me, if you need anythin’. Call my office or my partner. Our numbers are in the packet you were given yesterday. One of us will always answer.” </p><p>You pick at the cuticle of your thumbnail, nodding. “Yeah, okay.” </p><p>Steve nods back, echoes your okay in a voice far too soft for you to be okay with hearing before he reaches over, opening your door. </p><p>Your eyes fall to his arm, then travel the distance of it to his face. If words could kill, his mouth would be empty. </p><p>You unbuckle yourself, avoid making eye-contact with him as you get out of the jeep and you’re about to shut the door when he calls out to you, says your name, making something slow and terrible burst inside your chest. </p><p>“What?” You ask, quiet and softer than he deserves. </p><p>“I’m sorry.” </p><p>He means it. You know he does. </p><p>Yet. </p><p>“Me too.” </p><p>He drives home, then to work with the radio turned up as loud as he can stand it, then louder, his grip so tight around the steering wheel that the skin of his hands stretch white around his knuckles, hoping it’ll be enough to keep his mind off of you, off the memory of it, stopping his mind from unfolding it again and again, far to familiar with this to know that if he doesn’t distract himself, it’ll consume him. </p><p>It doesn’t have to mean anything. </p><p>Save for that it does - it has to -  because he’s a grown man. He’s a grown man with responsibilities. With a job. With people that rely on him and a set of rules he needs to follow and an ex-wife. Because that’s how the world works. </p><p>He takes the right turn into the parking lot with an unnecessary amount of aggression, the car’s tires squealing against the pavement, lowers the radio volume as he pulls into a parking spot. Then shuts the vehicle off and sits in the driver’s seat for a few minutes, head devoid of thought yet somehow impossibly filled with it. </p><p>Eventually he gets out. </p><p>Jogs up the steps of the embassy, his tie crooked and needing adjusting, his suit jacket a little too loose - the one he had worn the day before wrinkled and depressed in the middle of his shoulder blades - a reminder of another thing he had forgotten to do, a sticky note stuck to the frame of his front door simply reading: ‘dry cleaners’ in his slanting, uppercase handwriting. But he hadn’t had enough time to get properly dressed after dropping you off, quickly shedding his civilians in favor of reaching into the pile of clothes on his bedroom floor, his belt still in the loops of his dress pants. </p><p>Because of such - and a whole bunch of other shit that he shouldn’t be dealing with but got himself into anyway - he doesn’t notice his coworker until it’s too late. Some new guy he doesn’t particularly like, Aaron, eager to jump headfirst into situations, eager to prove himself, and just as eager to rub elbows with the people he thinks will get him to the top. </p><p>“Saw you take that girl home, Murphy.” He greets, falling in step with Steve. “She what? Twenty? Twenty-one?” </p><p>Steve looks at him from his periphery, but keeps his head forward, determined to get to his desk without having this conversation. </p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it.” </p><p>“I mean, I ain’t judging man…I get it.” He placates, his hands up in surrender, a grin on his face that Steve really, really does not like. “But I thought you and Connie were still, you know, trying to fix things. It isn’t any of my business, except I was hoping to take a swing at that girl myself, seems like she has a thing for a man in charge.” </p><p>Steve turns, grabs his coworker by the front of his shirt, and presses him up against the nearest wall with a thud so hard that he can hear the other man wheeze as the air is knocked out of his chest. “You’re right. It ain’t your business.” He sneers, jostling him every other sentence. “And if I hear you ever, ever - speak about her again or even so much as look in her direction, I’ll feed you your fuckin’ teeth. You got that?” </p><p>“I-what?” </p><p>“Answer. Me.” </p><p>Aaron quickly nods his head, his palms up, somewhere between wanting to fight and knowing better. </p><p>“Y-Yeah! Jesus, I got it, Murphy. Christ.” </p><p>Steve lets go, takes a small step back. “Good.”</p><p>Steve approaches his desk, ignores a greeting from Javier. He’s too tired for this. Too old, he thinks. There had been a purpose, at one point, about being down here. Catching Escobar had been so important to him that he had lost the one thing that made it all bearable. What’s the point for a man that’s got nothing to lose? Miami. Tennessee. They’re worlds away. And he’s sure that even if he tried - even if he was inclined to, wanted to actually do it - to return would be useless. He’d stick out. Bumble through adjusting like he had no idea how to live. They were briefed on that, some guy in some building in some classroom lectured on returning to civilian life. Was required, he remembered, and he had breezed through the course because he was young and stupid and thought that - hey, I’m years away from doing any of this shit, this doesn’t apply to me - except now it might. </p><p>He probably should have paid attention. </p><p>The building buzzes with noise, telephones ringing and people talking. He sheds his jacket, tosses it onto the filing cabinet near his desk, and slumps into his desk chair, pinching the bridge of his nose, not listening to any of it. Not paying attention to any of it, even the way his own telephone begins to ring. He’s got his head tilted back, his hands on his face, his feet already hurting in his goddamn dress shoes, just wanting to drift off for half a second when he’s shouldered back into reality. </p><p>Javier. Javier lowering the phone back into its receiver, looking down at him like he better pull his head out of his ass, like Steve’s about to be in some deep shit. </p><p>Looking concerned. Looking just as tired. </p><p>“Messina. She wants to see you in her office.” He explains, rounding the corner of his own desk, lighting a cigarette. “What did you do?” </p><p>The blond blinks slowly, rubs his forehead. “I made a mistake, Javi.” </p><p>Javier snorts. “That’s ominous. Big enough to upset Messina?” </p><p>“Yeah.” Steve agrees, sounding so exhausted that Javier furrows his eyebrows, pausing. </p><p>“Better go see what she wants.” He suggests and Steve is annoyed with the way he can pretty much see the way the wheels are turning in his partner’s head. </p><p>“Yeah,” he repeats as he gets up, grabbing his badge and gun out of the top drawer of his desk knowing he’ll probably need them. “I will.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. into the fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Messina is standing behind her desk when Steve walks in, telephone in one hand, the other holding a pen that she taps the cap against a thick notepad of yellow paper. <b><br/></b></p><p>Her office is meticulous, stately, all shiny pieces of oak and brass. The giant embassy seal behind her acts almost like a nimbus, the American and Colombian flags flanking her like scepters, her chair a throne, all of it so incredibly bureaucratic looking and authoritative that he feels - for just a second - like a goddamn second grader sent to the principal’s office. </p><p>Like a man on judgement day. </p><p>And he supposes that’s pretty much what this is, a trip to be reprimanded for his behavior this morning. But instead of having a ruler smacked across his knuckles by a nun or being sent to hell, he’ll probably be losing his job. </p><p>It should be concerning how initially unbothered he is by that. </p><p>He stands in the doorway, hand gripped around the doorknob as if he’ll have to swing it shut at a moment’s notice, and she levels him, makes a gesture with her hand to close the door, and he notices suddenly that Aaron is standing off to his right - tucked in the corner like a rat, looking no worse for wear than a few wrinkles in his shirt and a severely wounded sense of pride. </p><p>Messina makes a few comments into the receiver, then slowly lowers the plastic. </p><p>For a few moments the room is quiet and unbearably tense. </p><p>“Do you have any idea what this is about, Agent Murphy?” </p><p>Steve clears his throat, glances at Aaron in his periphery, who has so far kept his gaze steadily on the floor, then settles his own on his superior and places his hands in his pockets in an effort to appear nonchalant. </p><p>“I’m afraid that I don’t, boss.” </p><p>She looks at him hard for a long time. </p><p>He’s being cautious, not entirely sure what she’s been told, what all she knows. He isn’t about to incriminate himself if all he’s guilty of is roughing up his coworker, certainly isn’t about to spill the beans now that he’s being pinned down. </p><p>Not illegal, what he’s doing - what he’s done - but definitely not moral. A scandal like that would be enough for them to bury him under a metric ton of paperwork, obliterate his very existence. He’d be handing over his weapon and his badge and packing his things, sent away with a slap on the ass back to the United States faster than he could turn around to look at the hand that did it. </p><p>That’s theorizing his not so up to code behavior isn’t leaked first. </p><p>“Murphy,” she begins, exasperation and annoyance heavy in her tone. “I should make you aware before anything else comes out of your mouth that I do not appreciate being lied to, nor do I enjoy having my time wasted.” </p><p>The blond purses his lips, looks down at his feet and nods. </p><p>“Understood?” </p><p>Steve fights the bitter urge to laugh that crawls its way up his throat. “Yes, ma’am.” </p><p>“Messina.” She interrupts him sharply. </p><p>He looks back up at her, notes in his head with annoyance that she’s been down here all of two seconds, nothing at all compared to the two years he’s been doing time in this country, sacrificing little bits of himself in the pursuit of a man that is swiftly beginning to cost him everything. Maybe if she had been here longer, if this had happened a few months from now, she’d get it. “Understood.” </p><p>“Good.” </p><p>He watches her round her desk, then lean against it and cross her arms. </p><p>“Now, I need you to explain to me why exactly it was you attacked another agent this morning. Then you need to give me a few reasons I shouldn’t fire you for making my life more difficult and for making the DEA look bad.” </p><p>“Listen, I-” </p><p>“I’d advise you to think carefully about your words before you say them.” </p><p>Steve closes his eyes, locks his jaw and takes a deep breath through his nose. When he opens them again, he’s slightly further away from his tipping point, but not far enough that he’s no longer in danger of losing his temper again. He can’t blame any of them for not understanding. No one other than maybe Javier could really suspect that anything more than an awful, drawn out divorce is the pinpoint all his bad decisions hinge upon. And they’d be right in that assessment, correct in assuming that when your wife leaves you for her sister’s in Miami, a few weeks after you’ve been kidnapped, and a few more weeks before you’ve slept with an informant barely old enough to order herself a drink at the bar - things aren’t going to look so good. </p><p>“There’s no excuse for what I did.” He starts, biting down so hard on the spongy flesh of his bottom lip as he rolls it against his teeth that his mouth floods with the tangy taste of iron. “I’ll admit to that, but before you make your decision about what to do with me, I wanna remind you that most of the intel you have is because of the things that I’ve done, and the efforts I’ve made to get that information. The thing is right now-” </p><p>Steve sucks his teeth, places his hands on his hips and shakes his head, nearly in disbelief that this is happening.</p><p>The need to maintain his composure and keep his gaze level on Messina in order to remain professional and honest looking isn’t enough to combat the way his nose begins to burn with the rest of his sentence still lodged in his throat. </p><p>“Right now, I’m just goin’ through some shit.” </p><p>A significant understatement, compiled with the fact that not only did his wife leave him, Pablo Escobar - the man they had finally caught and the reason for his fucking divorce - had not just built a five-star prison, but got to walk out the back door of it because somehow, someone somewhere fumbled the goddamn football. </p><p>“It won’t happen again.” </p><p>Messina nods slowly, watches him from down the bridge of her nose. Steve notices, not for the first time, the sort of nervous energy behind every move she makes - the anxious desire to prove herself - to assert herself as his boss, as the one in charge, and he gets it, he does, but he really wishes she’d make a lesson out of someone else, even though he really, honestly deserves whatever is coming to him. </p><p>“Agent Green, you’re free to leave. Murphy, you stay.” </p><p>The other agent nods, pushes himself away from the wall, and walks past Steve like he’s still deciding which way to feel about this, as if he can’t figure out who has won quite yet. Caught somewhere between smirking and keeping his eyes to the ground. Either way, he loses. He’s still the spineless motherfucker who went crying to his boss after an altercation that didn’t even result in a bloody nose, and he might - depending how this goes - be the one responsible for selling someone like <em>Steve Murphy</em> down the river, ruining any chance he had at becoming a legend in this agency himself. </p><p>Her office door clicks softly shut behind him. </p><p>“So…” She starts again, a gentleness in her voice he hadn’t been anticipating. “Your wife left.” </p><p>Steve blinks, keeps his expression neutral. </p><p>“Peña tell you that?” </p><p>Messina raises her eyebrows with the concerned condescension a teacher might have. “It doesn’t matter who told me.” </p><p>“You’re upset, so you lashed out. Maybe even knocked a few back last night to numb the pain, came into work this morning with a headache, then decided to take all that pain out on an agent that happened to look at you the wrong way.” </p><p>There’s a piece of glass right above his diaphragm, just below his ribs, that’s beginning to tear a hole through the thin pericardium covering his organs, burning like a drop of acid with every word that she says, every assumption she makes, every biting enunciation about his life and his marriage and his actions like she’s psychoanalyzing him - like she’s tapped into some well or pool in his head that tells her everything she needs to know - like he’s just one more anecdote away from being completely dissected. </p><p>So he rolls his shoulders, sucks his teeth and swallows, does his best to ignore it. “Yeah, somethin’ like that.” </p><p>“An isolated incident?” </p><p>His jaw clicks. Whatever Aaron might have told her will reveal itself now and he’ll be in a world of shit. She’s laying down all her aces. </p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>She nods and looks away from him, well aware of how he and everyone sees her, like she’s some inexperienced know it all, like she doesn’t have the right to be telling them what to do, that they’d be much better off not having to listen. </p><p>“Look, I know I haven’t been down here that long, that the people I’m in charge of, maybe even you, don’t take me seriously-” </p><p>Steve chuckles, nods and smiles because she got it exactly right, but it’s not because he thinks it’s funny, or that he’s glad for it. “Mm.” </p><p>She smiles back with a venom just as vicious. “Before that, you and Peña had complete autonomy to call your own shots. It’s gonna take you and everyone else a minute to get used to the new order. You don’t trust me yet? That’s fine. But if I’m gonna have your back, I need to know that I can trust you. That means not making me have to deal with bullshit like this. Otherwise, I have no problem sending you back to your wife in Miami.” </p><p>Ex-wife. </p><p>He doesn’t correct her. </p><p>But he is tempted to tell her that that might even be for the best. </p><p>“Am I making myself clear?” </p><p>The half-smirk on his face is barely noticeable beneath the grimace threatening to take over his expression. “Loud and clear.” </p><p>“Good.” </p><p>Messina rounds her desk again, organizes a few things in a motion he knows is purely to build up to whatever blow is coming, then looks up at him, sighing. “I’m giving you two weeks.” </p><p>He balks, brings his hand to his face and scrubs his mouth harshly. “Messina-” </p><p>“<em>Two weeks</em>,” she repeats with more emphasis. “To figure out whatever is going on with you and to fix it. Surrender your badge and your gun, give your files to Agent Peña then <em>go home</em>, Steve. Shower. Sleep it off. I don’t want to see you back here until your suspension is over.”  </p><p>Two weeks is like a lifetime down here. Anything could happen. Things change at the flip of a fucking hat and for all he knows, the fourteen days he’s stuck on suspension could be the very same stretch of time the DEA finally catches Escobar’s ass. And he’d have missed it. It would have all been for nothing. </p><p>Steve stands there, scoffs quietly under his breath in disbelief. </p><p>She waits for him to do as she’s asked and he does, not once looking at her head on, tossing his badge onto her desk before carefully placing the gun next to it, nearly making a show of it, so annoyed that he’s started to grit his teeth. </p><p>“You’re dismissed.” </p><p>The smell of cigarette smoke and the clacking of type-writer keys hits him once he steps out into the lobby, the yellow light bulbs and the murmur of people talking almost impossibly loud compared to the vacuum Messina had created in her office, like an airlock breaking with the opening and closing of her office door. </p><p>Javier is sitting down, cigarette perched between his lips, working on a report when Steve approaches. He looks up, stops, and his expression says it all and Steve is glad that he doesn’t ask outright, that he doesn’t have to say it, because he’s sure that if he opens his mouth again while inside this building absolutely nothing good would come of it, and instead of being on leave, he’d be fired outright for making a scene and insulting his boss. </p><p>His drawer slides open with considerable force after Steve tugs on its silver handle, the hinges complaining in an awful sort of rusted whine that makes him even angrier and causes the whole thing to jump. He can feel Javier watching, faintly registers the sound of him aligning his papers by tapping the bottom of the documents against the desk, knows that there’s probably a few working theories swirling around in his head right now about what just happened and why, but Steve refuses to let him in on this. Not because he thinks he’d take some satisfaction in his suffering, or even go and tell Messina the whole truth himself, but because he cannot and will not let someone else look at him the way everyone else seems to be since Connie left. </p><p>Expressions morphed into a weird mixture of empathy and curiosity and even a little bit of mirth - see, they’d think, he isn’t such a hotshot now. </p><p>Steve grabs his pistol, tucks it into the band of his pants at his back, then his jacket from off the filing cabinet. </p><p>“Murphy-” Javier calls out to Steve’s back as he vaults the stairs leading towards the exit, two at a time. </p><p>“Not now.” </p><p>The other agent exhales, leans back in his chair and taps his cigarette against his ashtray, hoping that two weeks from now, his partner figures it the fuck out. </p><p>
  <em>Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. </em>
</p><p>The atmosphere of the bathroom feels semi-solid, murky - thick like a bog filled with weeds and he pushes through it, fighting against an invisible tide to get to the sink. The fluorescents are so white that it makes the room feel sterile, and by extension just slightly <em>off.</em> A separate reality. A liminal space. </p><p>He places his palms flat against the cool granite of the counter, then looks at himself in the mirror. He nearly doesn’t recognize what - or rather who - is being reflected back at him, his eyes ringed in hues of purple and dark blue, his lash line red and his eyelids heavy, as if they were sunken in more than usual, like the alcohol from the night before had dried him out. Steve blinks. He turns on the faucet and cups his hands beneath the running water, lets it hit his palm and run through his fingers for what is only probably a few seconds, but feels like more - his mind somewhere else, but not gone either. Sitting idle. His pulse in his teeth and the world in hyper-focus, every inhale and exhale like a wave up against a rocking boat. Then finally he brings the cool liquid to his face. He drags his hands down, flicks whatever remains into the sink, catches himself in the glass again. </p><p>He moves with the intention of grabbing a paper towel to dry his face. </p><p>Gets halfway through the motion before his fingers are curling into a fist. </p><p>The dispenser is made of a cheap tin or aluminum like material that dents easily. It figures the government wouldn’t go through the expense of making sure that the amenities their employees have are top of the line, but it’s not so much about causing damage to federal property - actually isn’t about that at all - as it is a way for him to finally get it out. </p><p>All of this. </p><p>Whatever Messina had called pain. </p><p>The initial hit stings, but the skin covering his knuckles doesn’t break. It’s the third or maybe the forth one that does it, splits open down the middle of each finger like spines breaking through an arched back, cherry and raw and almost comically bloody, almost looking too red to be real. And soon after he’s stopped paying attention to the pain at all. </p><p>He just keeps going. </p><p>And going. </p><p>Until he hears the squeak of the bathroom door opening. </p><p>Steve takes a step back, panting and cradling his fist against his chest, his head tilted back towards the ceiling. Whoever walks in doesn’t say anything, might have even turned around and left once they saw what had happened, but it doesn’t matter because Steve doesn’t notice and he doesn’t care, either. </p><p>When he opens his eyes again the bathroom is bright, so bright that it makes his eyes hurt, his hand and his dress shirt a startling crimson. His chest heaves with exertion, and this time when he goes for a paper towel, he actually grabs one - has to wriggle and rip it out of the broken machine - pieces of shredded napkin floating to the floor. </p><p>He goes back to the sink, wets it then wraps it around the fingers of his right hand, fixes his ties with his left, wheels around suddenly as if just now realizing he wasn’t alone and makes tense eye-contact with the man who had decided to stay in the bathroom after all and he almost laughs. </p><p>Neither of them say anything as he leaves. </p><p>-</p><p>“Rough day?” </p><p>The sight of him is startling, and you quickly have to neutralize your expression and think of something to say before he finds the surprise and hurt etched within it. You had figured that when he dropped you off this morning, it’d be the last you’d see of each other. At least that’s the way he made it seem. He said to call, but you know better than to think it was anything more than a pad to soften the blow, something to make him feel a little less guilty for fucking you when he really just shouldn’t have. </p><p>You got out of his car. </p><p>He apologized. </p><p>That should have been it. </p><p>Steve raises his eyebrows, blowing some air out his mouth, somewhere between laughing out of humor and chuckling bitterly at his own misfortune. </p><p>“Yeah, you could say that.” </p><p>It’d be a severe understatement. A succinct enough phrase, though. </p><p>You want to know why he’s come here. For obvious enough reasons, you do work at a coffee stand and this is typically where he gets his coffee, but you thought today of all days he’d maybe forego making his daily trip and get his caffeine somewhere else given the circumstances of your last departure. You can’t just ask that, which is the problem. You’ve got to treat him like you would anyone else. </p><p>Steve must be feeling equally uncomfortable, but there’s a purpose in his posture that makes you think is keeping him from leaving. </p><p>“So uh…” You look away from him, partly because if you keep staring you’ll lose your train of thought, and largely because you’re a little afraid he’s thinking about it too. “What can I get you?” </p><p>He pulls his wallet out of his pocket with his left hand, the other - bruised and aching with his pulse - hidden in his coat. “Coffee, please. Black. And a coupla’ those sugar packets.” </p><p>You nod and turn away, grabbing the things you’ll need to make the drink for him, moving methodically, aware that every step you take could be and probably is being followed by him. </p><p>Steve quiet, going between watching the street - following the cars that roll by -  the people walking down the sidewalk or up the stairs of the embassy building, and you. There isn’t a whole lot he’s got to say that can be said right now. Actually, there isn’t a whole lot he has to say at all. He just wanted to see you, filled with this weird and ebbing desire to be near you again as if just by being in your proximity, getting put on suspension and nearly breaking his hand will become more bearable - easier to deal with - which is like  </p><p>
  <em>Super unhealthy. </em>
</p><p>You know this. And he might have an inkling about how bad this is too, but you also think he doesn’t seem the type to take a deep dive into his own psyche, so while he may feel strange about this, he probably won’t be able to pinpoint why - or rather - he won’t pinpoint why precisely because he’s aware he isn’t going to like what he finds. </p><p>Would much rather feel a little gross about himself than admit that he has terrible coping mechanisms. </p><p>Ignorance being bliss and all that. </p><p>You turn back around with his cup, ignoring the way some of the hot liquid begins to drip onto your slightly trembling fingers as you go to hand it to him, still desperately trying to retain any semblance of your professional composure because you like this job and you also like not making a fool of yourself - caught between your thoughts and the present, trying very hard to focus on the mantra in your head repeating that he’s just a customer. It’s fine. You’re fine. Just give him his drink.</p><p>Holding it out, you do your best to smile authentically. “Here’s your drink.” </p><p>Steve reaches for it and you go to retract your hand, but his fingers touch yours anyway, not even his fingers, actually, just his fucking fingertips and you nearly drop the fucking thing, startle like he had poked you in the side instead of reached out for his cup, and you go to grab it, to catch it before it hits the ground, but Steve is quicker than you are and catches it from the bottom, his hand covering yours. </p><p>You freeze, hope that you haven’t made an absolute idiot of yourself, but any form of the apology that’s ready to pass through your lips is stalled and rewired by the sight of his knuckles as he moves to hold the cup by its lid.</p><p>“Oh my god, Steve! Your hand!” </p><p>He says your name, follows it with something that sounds like I’m fine, the syllables piercing your exclamation like the lazy, tired throw of a harpoon intended to slow you down before you devolve into seriously worrying about him. </p><p>But he misses. And you keep going. </p><p>“What happened?”</p><p><em>Please don’t be because of me.</em>  </p><p>Before he can say anything, you’re swiveling to grab a bag from under the counter and he soon recognizes it as one of those bags that usually holds either cookies or biscotti or some other kind of pastry typically sold at coffee stands. And he follows your movements as you wrap it in a few napkins before filling the thing with ice, creating a make-shift ice pack out of cart supplies, twisting the rustling plastic shut then securing it close with a red paper twist tie. </p><p>“Here,” you say, holding it out for him to take. “For the swelling. You don’t want it to get any worse.” </p><p>Steve takes it, can feel the heavy gazes of the other customers off his neck - can’t be sure if they’re actually staring or if he’s just imagining that they are, everything zeroed in on him and his bad decision making for the world to see. </p><p>He clears his throat, opening his wallet. “How much do I owe you?” </p><p>The impulse to speak surpasses your mind’s ability to filter what you’re saying and weigh the implication of it. “Don’t worry about it. Just get your hand looked at and we’re even.” </p><p>You have a few ones in your purse. You’ll slip them into the drawer once he walks away. It’ll be fine. </p><p>There is a moment that passes that lasts only a few seconds, so heavy it almost doesn’t feel real. </p><p>His smile is as close as you’re going to get to a thank you, tense and forced and so incredibly sad looking that you almost apologize, as if you’re the one that’s upset him, like maybe it’ll make him feel better for whatever reason. </p><p>Steve walks away before you say anything else. </p><p>-</p><p>He goes home and stays there for three days. </p><p>The living room quickly becomes unrecognizable. </p><p>Alcohol bottles and beer cans varying in shape and color litter the coffee table, most of them mild in their percentages - just enough to get the job done - but a few of them more of the hard stuff. Whiskey and bourbon glowing like fossilized amber as the mid-afternoon sun passes through the glass. </p><p>His ashtray is full. All except for one window blind is down. The plant decorations Connie had picked out and scattered around the apartment would be wilting by now or already dead if they hadn’t been made out of plastic. And lingering cigarette smoke makes everything it touches hazy, veiled in a thin layer of grey fog. </p><p>His phone in the center of the table like he had been sitting down with it, his thumb hovering over the buttons, going back and forth back and forth between grabbing it and putting it back, pacing, working up the courage to call someone. </p><p>To call Connie. </p><p>Or you. </p><p>Javier visits him once on the day he left work and the sober part of him only knows that because he recognized his outfit as the same one he had been wearing when he walked into the embassy that morning. They had a very brief, very tense conversation about Messina, about what to do, and Steve asked Javi to keep him posted - keep him informed, update him on any new developments should they occur while he marinates in dejection and his own self-hatred. Javi agreed and Steve sensed it was mostly as an act of pity, reports to keep him from going off the deep end entirely.  </p><p>After that he had muttered a quick and somber I’ll call you and left without finishing his beer. </p><p>So the last thing he expects is a knock at his door. </p><p>He ignores it, slumped on his sofa with his fingers wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle, the glow of the television making him, to any outsider that might find him here, all the more pathetic looking. Then it happens again, more hesitant this time, less assured than the first knock. </p><p>He gets up. “What?” </p><p>You’re on the other side when he opens it. </p><p>And Steve stands there with the frame of it in his hand, almost wishing he could shut his head in it, regretting that he hadn’t answered with a little more civility. </p><p>Your hand still hovers in the air and in your arms are a few grocery bags held against your chest, filled with microwave meals and some medical supplies - surgical tape, butterfly band-aids, a couple of those snap and freeze reusable ice packs, and disinfectant wipes. You’re not sure what had compelled you to buy them, or why you thought it was a good idea to come to his apartment with them, but you’re here and now that he knows that, there’s no getting out of it, either. Not without making it incredibly awkward and weird. </p><p>Saying that it already isn’t.  </p><p>“What’re you doing here?” </p><p>He speaks with a voice like gravel, gentle, though, kind of soft-spoken. You notice immediately, despite the effort he’s putting in to remain okay-ish appearing in front of you now, that he’s swaying slightly, that his eyes are red and a little puffy, that his lips are chapped, and that if he were to bring his right hand into view, you’d see it wasn’t faring any better than his face. </p><p>The sight of him makes your heart hurt, makes you feel sort of guilty even though this isn’t your fault. He’d even tell you that himself. </p><p>“You just uh…” You lick your lips and readjust the way you’re standing, trying to appear more confident and less like a nervous disaster, already thinking this was a bad idea. “You stopped getting coffee…and I thought that maybe it was because of what happened and that’s totally understandable, I get it, so I waited a few days. But then I overheard some guy in a tan suit talking about you yesterday and then I got worried and I bought these after my shift and decided to bring them to you, except now I’m starting to think that was a bad idea because clearly you don’t want anything to do with me anymore and again I get that, I just-” </p><p>God, what were you even thinking when you thought this would be a good idea? He apologized for fucking you as he dropped you off. Why the hell are you here? </p><p>Steve says your name and you close your mouth, realizing with a rush of embarrassment you had been too quick to justify your actions and had started to ramble. </p><p>You look up at him, the grocery bags crinkling. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” </p><p>The hand that had knocked on his door raises to your face, pinching the gold stud in your left ear in a gesture that is childish in its self consciousness yet adult in its grace. </p><p>He finds himself asking if you want to come in before he can think of anything else to say. </p><p>Steve looks out into the hallway behind you, imagines you trying to get up the stairs with all the things in your hands, and forces himself not to think about whether any of his neighbors saw you come in. </p><p>The door shuts with a soft click. He follows you through the entryway, then quickly passes you to pick up bottles until he can’t grab anymore, a few of them dangling from the spaces between his fingers or pinched between his fingertips, clinking together in his hurried effort to clean up. He hadn’t done this for Javi, didn’t really give a shit about what he thought of his house, but with you he’s filled with the impulse to both deflect and maintain, not wanting your first memory of his apartment in the daylight to feature his downward spiral into alcoholism. </p><p>He goes to the kitchen and you can hear the glasses thud as they hit the bottom of his trash can. When he returns, Steve sniffs and clears his throat, making a gesture towards the bags in your arms. “I can take these.” </p><p>You nod, smile a little out of pity as you hold them out for him, somewhere between worrying and wondering if you should leave. </p><p>“Have you…have you had anything to eat in the last twenty-four hours, Steve?” </p><p>His kitchen is in better condition, but that isn’t saying a whole lot. There aren’t as many dishes as you had suspected in his sink, although it figures that he wasn’t using much of anything in terms of plates or cups or bowls when surviving off six-packs and nicotine for the past seventy-two hours. Still, there’s a level of disorganization and neglect to it that has you frowning, watching his back and his shoulders move beneath his shirt as he places the groceries onto the counter. </p><p>“‘M fine.” </p><p>“That didn’t answer my question…” You walk up behind him, fish a cardboard carton containing a generic image of some pasta dish printed on the label, and hold it up for him to see. “I brought you some stuff to eat. I don’t know what happened…and I won’t ask, but I figured an easy to make, hot meal would be nice until you get back on your feet.” </p><p>You explain as you look up into his face. His expression is difficult to read, not quite neutral, but not not neutral either, almost like he’s trying to keep his emotions in check and by doing so is making sure he isn’t emoting at all. </p><p>You set the frozen food down when he doesn’t say anything, continuing to grab things from the bag. “I also bought you some like - actual food. Bread, some lunch meat. I wasn’t sure which kind you’d like, so I just got the stuff my dad and brothers like on their sandwiches, so ham, salami, uh - what else?” </p><p>You’re in the middle of searching another bag when he grabs your wrists, gentle and patient, lifting your hands away from the bags, but firm enough to make you stop and look at him. </p><p>“Did I do something wrong-” </p><p>“Why’re you doin’ this?” </p><p>You blink and swallow, beginning to shake your head. </p><p>“I mean, I appreciate it. I do, but I’m just not followin’, sweetheart.” </p><p>How can you possibly explain it when you’re not even sure yourself. </p><p>You deflate, having incredible difficulty looking at him straight on, so you look away and tug your arms down, picking at your thumbnail once he lets go of your wrists.  “I don’t know.” </p><p>Steve’s heart plummets into his stomach. “<em>Shit.</em> I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…” </p><p>“No, no. You didn’t. I’m just, uh, realizing now how kind of stupid this was. I should have called or something…or just not have done this at all. I’m sorry.” </p><p>“No,” he’s quick to reassure you, hoping it’ll work, aware that whatever he says next might be more like rubbing balm on a burn, trapping the heat. “It wasn’t stupid. I thought that we-” </p><p>Steve stops, thinks about it. “I don’t know what I thought, but we both know this ain’t a good idea.” </p><p>“What do you mean?” </p><p>“What I mean, honey, is that you’re young and I’m in the middle of gettin’ a divorce.” He states like that explains it all and it might. Although a major understatement of the circumstance, its accurate nonetheless, concise, too. Down to the bare bones. </p><p>“Steve-” </p><p>“And I like you a lot more than I should. I know that somethin’ happened between us, and that that’s why you’re here, but I won’t take advantage of that. I stayed away.” </p><p>Jesus, he wishes you would have too. </p><p>“Steve-” you repeat again and this time he pauses, looks at you and sighs. </p><p>“What?” </p><p>You roll your bottom lip between your teeth, anxious and on the cusp of being foolishly, naively heartbroken. “I’m sorry.” </p><p>The blond brings his hands to his hair, clearly battling something within himself and losing. </p><p>“Christ, don’t tell me you’re sorry.” </p><p>It takes every bit of brain power you possess to process what he’s said, to register that he’s said anything at all when the space between the end of his sentence and his next move is about two milliseconds, as he surges forward, kissing you hard. </p><p>Your footing falters, your hands in the air like two fluttering and nervous birds in the seconds that follow until you’re able to realize what is happening, your mind catching up, your hands falling to his stomach, your fingers grasping at his wrinkled t-shirt just above the grip of the pistol he had stuffed into the front of his pants before getting up to answer the door. </p><p>A series of stumbling and hurried steps get you to the couch. Steve is running on muscle memory, guiding you through doorways and past pieces of furniture, apologizing in a muffled and hoarse voice when your thigh catches the corner of the coffee table, rubs away the sting as he sits down and pulls you into his lap. </p><p>Then he’s leaning away or maybe you are you can’t really tell because everything has become abysmal in comparison to the way his lips feel and the burning beginning to develop in a slow crawl up your lungs. </p><p>A second of hesitance passes, your heart in your throat. Steve’s lips are red and raw, his eyes heavy lidded, and you stare down at his face, struck by how beautiful and tragic it is. </p><p>“Why do you keep kissing me like that?” </p><p>An innocent enough question that slips out of your mouth as easily as spilled sugar, asked with no forethought and considered now with little pretenses. A genuine curiosity borne out of his every contradiction and the hurt that follows. </p><p>The effect it has on him is nearly instantaneous. He’s straddling a very thin rope. Recognizes that although he’s trying to do what’s best for the both of you, he’s a weak man. He can’t just come waltzing into your life and you really shouldn’t be coming back into his. He can’t take up space that should be reserved for somebody else, someone who isn’t bound to fuck it up, space that could be occupied by anyone else really, for somebody who’s safer and kinder and better than him. </p><p>But he does so anyway. Only regretting it once it’s over, once you’re gone. </p><p>You half predict that he’ll rush into it now that he’s got you here again, but he doesn’t. </p><p>Instead Steve reaches for his pistol as if remembering now that it’s there, the metal barrel digging uncomfortably into the skin and muscle of his stomach, the weapon stuck between your bodies, and he get about half way through the motion when your hand lands on his wrist, stops him, and he stares at you with furrowed eyebrows, his expression growing serious.  </p><p>“What are you doin’?” He murmurs, low and cautious, asking for the second time tonight.  </p><p>You shift, your cunt catching against the front of his jeans. “Nothing…” </p><p>Steve’s fingers tighten around the grip as you tug his hand out of his pants, the gun shiny and reflecting in the low light of his apartment; the television as it goes through late night commercials, muted in the background now, bouncing different scenes against your bodies. </p><p>“Nothing…” he repeats, looking down at you, chuckling a little, trying to understand your motivation. “Doesn’t look like nothin’ to me, sweetheart.” </p><p>Your hand slides over his own, and you’re careful to keep eye contact with him as your fingertips glide against the safety, your palm wrapping around the barrel. You drag your fingers down the metal - heated from his skin - rolling your hips and Steve’s eyelashes flutter as he swallows, the gun sliding easily out of his hand. </p><p>“Careful.” He thinks to warn afterwards, somewhere between wanting to take it from you before you hurt yourself and enjoying the sight of you holding it. </p><p>Which is with very little finesse, very little expertise, fumbling almost, and uncertain, unused to the weight of something like this in your palm. And he’s mindful to watch it, to glance at it every few seconds as his gaze shifts between your face and the weapon in your hand. </p><p>Then he thinks that maybe he should teach you. Earnestly, at first, because he did drag you into an operation that put your safety at risk and the consequences of that are still revealing themselves - and he’d never forgive himself if you got hurt, or worse, so the idea of helping you to become more able to protect yourself when he can’t is one he stores away for later, replaced by a thought that makes his cock jump. </p><p>You look down between your bodies as his hand, dry and coarse, covers your own, and you don’t know initially what he’s doing, what his plan is, until he starts moving, slowly and carefully, his other hand travelling to the nape of your neck, his fingers twisting in your hair to keep you looking. </p><p>The first brush of it against your cunt makes you startle. The second more solid press of it illuminates what’s happening. </p><p>The gasp that scratches its way up your throat is pitiful and surprising, fear and excitement fusing together into a strange mixture of arousal, a sudden awareness of him and the gun and how dangerous this is sending a tremor through your abdomen, igniting it into flurries of electricity that travel down your thighs. </p><p>“You like this?” </p><p>The tethers of your awareness register his question and your near instantaneous nod is followed by his smirk and an airy, teasing yeah, course you do. </p><p>His rocking with it is so slow that its nearly torturous, the self-satisfied smile on his face and the easy movement of his hand enough to have you already asking for more - something more solid and forgiving than the barrel of his pistol pressed against your pussy, the fabric of your underwear uncomfortable and sticky and shameful, almost, because you absolutely should not be turned on by this or even him right now at all, but you are, desperately and achingly so. </p><p>“Steve, please.” </p><p>You remember how it was with him before, how he took his time, far more patient than you have ever been - the kind of patience only a man like him could have - and you hope feebly that he’ll have more mercy on you this time, that he’ll give you what you want without dragging it out. </p><p>“What, baby?” </p><p>You don’t want to say it, embarrassed and flustered, your legs and cunt aching. </p><p>So you repeat his name, reaching for his shoulders, leaning down into a kiss that’s messy and slow and almost cruelly, unbelievably sexual. His tongue presses into your mouth, filthy enough that it has your stomach tensing, the muscle curling over your teeth in a way that has you, not for the first time, pliant in his arms and unsure what to do - just taking it, following his lead, overwhelmed and light-headed and trembling with want. </p><p>In the moments his mouth is slanted over yours, you can’t bring yourself to say anything either, not even his name, can’t form words, can’t even make a sound so deliciously off-balance and overwrought and uncertain that simply kissing him back is an exercise of your will power. </p><p>You feel Steve lean forward, the action quickly followed by the sharp clang of the gun against the glass table. Immediately you miss the item’s presence, but he doesn’t keep you suffering for long - he grabs you hard enough to bruise, then then harder, wrenching you forwards until your chest is flushed against his and you almost think that maybe he’s forgotten about his injured hand because you certainly have but you catch the way he hisses through his teeth as he unzips your pants, his knuckles grazing against the harsh fabric of the denim. </p><p>You go to grab it but the arm around your waist has you so close to him that when you move you can feel the press of his cock in between your legs, hard and hot, so although you register that its probably hurting him to move his hand like this all you can think about is how bad you want this - <em>him. </em></p><p>And how bad he seems to want you back. </p><p>“You gonna let me fuck you, honey? Is that what you want?” Steve whispers, rough and blunt as if he’s restraining the desire in his voice by force, his fingertips toying with the elastic waistband of your panties, gliding up and down the sheer lace of your underwear, threatening to dip even lower but never quite getting there, toying with you - the sudden friction enough to have your breath hitching. </p><p>“I needa answer, baby.” </p><p>Yes, God, you’d let him do anything just as long as he touched you. </p><p>“Yes, <em>please</em>,” you whine, not entirely sure what you’re asking or what you’re in for, but not really caring, either. </p><p>Steve instructs you to sit up and you rise onto your knees, clumsily kicking your pants off while he undoes his fly and you know that its inelegant, ungraceful, that if you were watching yourself you’d be ashamed by your frantic and stupid need to be near him because there’s a pattern here that you’re noticing and it isn’t a good one. It’s kind of a bad one, actually, and not at all sustainable and eventually you’re going to hurt your own feelings and it’s going to get so much worse than it would have been if you practiced some common sense and self-restraint except you don’t care. Not right now, at least, because for some inexplicable, absurd reason you like him. A lot. And you care about him in a way that’s maybe indicative of a naïve crush. You’d like to suspect that it isn’t that, but he was right when he said earlier that you’re young. </p><p>He just - is not. </p><p>When he kisses you again it’s steady and determined, and you find yourself settling back into his lap, the coarse fabric of his jeans and his shirt scratching the sensitive skin of your thighs and your stomach where your own shirt is riding up, but you can’t be bothered to give the feeling more than a fleeting acknowledgement as he pulls himself out of his boxers. </p><p>His mouth moves down the curve of your jaw, to your neck, sweet kisses hardened by the drag of his stubble, aware that the skin there will be hot and tender for some time after you’ve finished, but focused solely on the insistent pressure of his cock and the way he spreads your legs open, your knees digging into the couch cushions, his breath fanning torrid along your collarbones and your combined breathing coming sharp and fast and he - </p><p>“Shit.” He grits, pushing inside and your nails dig into his shoulders, then gather the fabric of his shirt up between your fingers. </p><p>It’s big inside you, different than you remember but also the same, and it makes you feel full and stretched and overwhelmed, his name making it past your lips before he’s pulling you down again, kissing you, starting to move. </p><p>The living room becomes murky, the expansive slope of his body and your own casting long shadows on the wall in front of you, illuminated by the television screen. Your hands move up and across his chest, looking for something to hold on to, something that’ll anchor you to reality, the drag of his cock in your cunt quickly devolving into an out of body experience. Steve must notice, since his left hand finds one of yours, slides up your arm and laces your fingers together in an action so tender that it has you crying out, your forehead falling to his. </p><p>“You’re so good, baby. Goddamn.” </p><p>The world has narrowed down in frighteningly intense focus to you and to him and the hard slide of his cock into you over and over and over again, his groans sugar-sweet and just as unrefined, arousal thumping low beneath your skin as he runs his free hand down between your bodies to rub across your clit and you’re so close already that it wouldn’t take much - just a few passes, a few hard presses and you’d be tipping over the edge, starting to keen helplessly because it feels so good, feel even better than the first time. </p><p>You rock back against him, caught in the current of his movements, trying to match his pace. His sinuous praises fill the air around you, his hips slamming into the cradle of your thighs hard enough to ache, hard enough to wring involuntary and messy moans from some place between your ribs. And you can feel the creeping edges of your orgasm, approaching quickly and its shameful in how fast it hits, a sudden burst of white-hot pleasure that has you freezing, your body tensing, and it’s all you can do to take it, leaning against him and whining into his shoulder. </p><p>Steve pulls away his fingers. He makes their next home your hair, carding through before tightening into a loose fist just tight enough that he can use it as leverage to lift your head up. It isn’t a kiss so much as it is shared breathing, his lips brushing against yours, your noses brushing together. You can tell that he’s close when he begins to lose his rhythm, his eyes squeezing shut and his mouth falling open as his breath catches, shuddering something that sounds like your name but maybe, probably, wasn’t. </p><p>For a few minutes you just lay there, slumped against each other. As the world comes into more focus, you realize that you should say something, or that he should, the previous tension superseded by a much less bearable kind. </p><p>So you wriggle out of his lap and readjust your underwear, conscious of the way you’re leaking onto his couch, hoping he doesn’t mind and has a way to clean it up as you reach for your jeans. </p><p>Steve leans back, watching, and you’re about halfway through getting your foot through your pant leg when he speaks. “Wanna stay for dinner?” </p><p>The question makes you stop, but you quickly recover and keep going, looking down at his floor. “Is that a good idea? I thought you were saying earlier that we shouldn’t be doing this…unless you didn’t mean that, but if so now I’m confused and out like thirty-five dollars, so I’d really like to know what’s happening here.” </p><p>He tucks himself back into his pants, sitting up afterwards and trying to look serious about this even though the haze of what happened fills him only with the impulse to kiss you. </p><p>“I’m not gonna lie to you…” </p><p>“So…” </p><p>“But I’d like it if you would. And we can try to make this work.” </p><p>Emphasis on the important word here, try. His purposefully ambiguous use of ‘this.’ </p><p>Whatever. </p><p>“If that’s what you want.” He adds, affable and unassuming and so tired. </p><p>You want to go through all the possibilities of this, all the bad and good and neutral outcomes. You will, eventually, hopefully before you’re forced to, but right now all you want to do is make sure that he eats. </p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I want.” </p><p>Something wordless passes between you.</p><p>You smile a little and he smiles back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. underneath the leaves | halloween meet the parents AU</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Steve!” You call out his name into the hallway, standing inside the frame of the bedroom doorway, trying to get Steve’s attention with your boot in one hand, the other tied and on your foot already, hobbling, doing your best to hurry. “You promised we’d do this. We’re gonna be late.” <b><br/></b></p><p>A vacation from Colombia, from work, would be a generous name for what’s happening. The details are a little fuzzy, but you get the gist of why you’re here, or rather, why Steve is here, stateside. He had blown it all to shit, let his temper get the best of him, got put on suspension for beating someone up (?) - no, <em>beating Aaron up</em> - his coworker who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, couldn’t mind his own fucking business, who had caught Steve at a particularly vulnerable time (he had just dropped you off, you think, and was sure he’d never see you again), and suffered the consequences of trying a man already on his last legs. </p><p>Learning about that had been weird, filled you with a strange mixture of flattery and fear. He likes you enough to defend your honor, got put on the workplace equivalent of probation for threatening to feed a grown man his own teeth, but he also should have known better. Should be better by now at keeping his temper, at not getting into fights. </p><p>But then he came to you, explained in purposefully vague and obtuse terms that he wouldn’t be around for awhile, something had come up and he was being sent back for a few weeks and it had hurt. </p><p>Felt more like a loss than you had prepared yourself for. </p><p>So when he, in a low and quiet voice, standing in the middle of your living room, suggested that you come with him, agreeing had come with little hesitation and no forethought at all. </p><p>Now, however, you’re starting to kind of freak out. </p><p>Steve taps his razor against the sink as he bends his shaving cream covered cheek to get a cleaner shave, nearly done now, but then makes his expression normal, reaching for the sink’s faucet at the sound of your voice to lessen the water pressure - and the noise - with his free hand.</p><p>“What?” He echoes, stepping out of the bathroom, razor still in hand - blue plastic, a travel sized flimsy looking thing he packed because it was cheap - looking down the expanse of wooden floored hallway leading from the bathroom to the master suite. You’re looking at him, flustered as hell. And all he does for a second is smile at the sight of you, the very little amount of shaving cream he has left of his face making you smile back. “You look pretty, baby.” </p><p>You roll your eyes and lean against the wall to put on your missing shoe, looking up at him as he gets closer. “Thank you, but we really gotta pick up the pace here. I don’t want to keep your parents waiting.” </p><p>His first Halloween in Tennessee since he and his family moved to West Virginia. His parents went back a little while after he graduated college, closed down their carpet store and retired. West Virginia was nice, but they’ve got more family up there, and since Steve isn’t even in the country most of the time, moving had been a better idea than staying alone in a state they’d be constantly worrying about their son aline. Plus, they’re much closer to everyone for the holidays. </p><p>Halloween for Steve, though, once he was an adult usually meant sitting in a cruiser at the corner of a suburban neighborhood or patrolling it, making sure that some group of teenagers weren’t planning on egging some poor unsuspecting person’s house, or - perhaps worse only because it takes for fucking ever to clean up - throwing toilet paper into trees. </p><p>After that it was on to the DEA, then another graduation - he still remembers the way his mother shoved an envelope in his hand outside the auditorium, his father standing behind her with a hand on her shoulder, a white folder filled with a card inside filled with cash placed into his fist <em>just in case</em> - right around this time, if he’s remembering correctly. A fall ceremony. </p><p>That had been about a decade ago, maybe longer, he hasn’t really seen them since. He went down to Miami, spent most of his time then chasing down drug dealers in flip flops, living with his buddy and partner Kevin Brady - a man they never got the chance to meet, but spoke with on the phone a couple of times when they’d be in the middle of leaving a voicemail - he’d pick up the receiver, apologizing on behalf of his negligent fellow agent who you’re right, Mrs. Murphy, he clearly does not know how to pick up a telephone - while taking in the sun, sand, surf, and women. </p><p>He met Connie. They moved in together. You both know how that went. </p><p>You haven’t met them at all. </p><p>Steve snorts, returns to the bathroom and grabs a hand towel, cleaning his face. “I think you’re worryin’ too much about this, sweetheart.” </p><p>“I think one of us ought to.” You shoot back, appearing in the doorway - dressed and ready to go. He’s nearly ready himself, just has to find his coat, then grab his keys and wallet. You’re almost mad he’s so calm about this, and that he gets to look whatever way he wants because they’re his parents, that no matter what happens, they’ll probably still love him even though every bit of their Irish Catholic upbringing makes them want to scream at the thought of their son being a thirty-five year old divorcee.  </p><p>A thirty-five year old divorcee on top of dating<em> you. </em></p><p>You’re more nervous than you thought you’d be to meet his parents, in that you hadn’t thought about meeting them at all until now. It hadn’t crossed your mind, and you don’t think it had crossed Steve’s until they heard he was back. He doesn’t talk about them a whole lot, doesn’t mention much about his life in the States at all aside from some stories he shares about the academy. Choosing to go had been more about getting this over with, ripping off the metaphorical band-aid (to reveal the massive bruise underneath) but still - you want to make a good impression, you want them to like you, - even if it doesn’t matter that much to Steve, even if it won’t change the way he feels about you. Being close to someone connected to Steve outside this country is important, not only for understanding him, but for being able to bring him back when this is all over. Help to ease him into normalcy again. To stop him from tipping over the edge you know he’s been straddling since you’ve met him. Into a life where he isn’t spending the majority of his time bleeding out into someone else’s. You can’t do that alone. </p><p>“Relax. They’re gonna love you.” Steve tosses the wash cloth onto the counter, turns to face you and flips off the bathroom light before cupping your cheeks in his hands. He leans down close to your face, makes sure that you’re making eye-contact with him before speaking again, voice soft and reassuring. “Re-lax.” </p><p>“You don’t know that.” You grumble half-heartedly, your anxieties melting only slightly into ease when he kisses your forehead. </p><p>“‘Cept I do.” He volleys back, sidestepping you to walk towards the small kitchen where his things sit in a blue porcelain bowl on the counter. He had thrown them there last night and it made the most obnoxious clattering sound you’ve ever heard, so loud that for a second you thought he broke it, the dish spinning around like someone had tied a string around its center then pulled, but fortunately for the both of you, it hadn’t. The last thing you need is to pay to have a stupid hotel bowl replaced. </p><p>But that’s a pretty good analogy now, you think, for how you feel. </p><p>Like a stupid hotel bowl about to break. </p><p>You follow him, feeling your petulance growing in your throat. “How?” </p><p>Steve stops, exhales, looks up at the ceiling then turns his head to look at you, rental car keys dangling from his pointer and middle fingers. </p><p>“Christ, they’re my parents, honey. I know them and I know you. Quit stressin’ yourself out about it and let’s go.” </p><p>He’s lying to himself and you both know it. He isn’t about to tell you that. It’s enough that you both know, deep down, this might not end well at all. That, actually, you’re almost certain it will end very poorly, is a deeply rooted seed in the back of your heads. Traditionalists, proud of their son for working in the government, worried like any parent would be when that means his job is dangerous, but not easily forgiving when the crime of a sin has been committed, unaware that his ideology has change, and that all the patriotic bullshit that once existed in their son had been thrown out the window a long time ago.  </p><p>He opens the front door, holds it open by the top and watches as you walk past him, narrowing your eyes in annoyance that can only be directed towards yourself because he’s right, you do need to relax or you’re going to make an idiot of yourself, just as he leans down and mocks you in a teasing voice. <em>“We’re gonna be late.” </em></p><p>You step out of the apartment, helpless in your fight to stop the laughter before it comes, rolling your lips together. “Fuck off.” </p><p>-</p><p>They’re not quite what you expected. </p><p>Both blondes - greying now at their roots and temples. Both tall. Both speak in voices thick with Appalachian English. His mother has curly hair that falls to her shoulders, a friendly smile, blue eyes that match her sons. His dad’s are darker, more hooded, stern looking, and you can imagine what they must have been like in their youth. A handsome couple. The people who had created the most important man in your life. </p><p>Ruthless, though, strict. Hard on him and his siblings during the weekdays. Easier going during the weekend. Put them all into sports. Steve played football, you think. He hadn’t told you that, but there are a few pictures of him in his apartment back in Colombia of when he was younger, big and broad shouldered, helmet in his hand, flanked by two of his friends. Quarterback. </p><p>Fitting. </p><p>The parking lot feels a little less like neutral ground than you thought it would. You shouldn’t have expected it would, though. This is their town, where they live. You’re on their turf, and to some extent, you’re on Steve’s too. </p><p>They hug him first, leaving you to stand next to the empty space he had occupied before being pulled into the arms of his mother, watching them. She leans back, smiles warmly, his father shakes his hand and pats his shoulder. For a second you fear that they might not even notice you, or acknowledge you, as they talk to him - eyes bright and happy - and it’s clear that they have a lot of catching up to do, that perhaps years of would be visits that got cancelled and fifteen minute phone calls in two different time zones should have been caulked and repaired before he decided to introduce them to a woman he’s met during the most volatile stage in his life. </p><p>It would certainly make it easier to explain how he met you. </p><p>And why he’s no longer fucking married. </p><p>They know that last bit. He had called, left a message on their answering machine, actually, which is sort of funny, but also super fucked up, saying something along the lines of <em>it just didn’t work out, she was too stressed, wanted to go back to Miami, I couldn’t force her to stay. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. </em></p><p>The absence of the band on his left ring finger was more a ceremonial solidification of what they both feared. </p><p>He was being serious. </p><p>Steve is the first to return to you, which develops as a little side note in your head to be examined later, bringing his parents attention to your presence as well, introducing you by name but without title. For the best, probably. You two haven’t discussed the dynamics of your relationship in depth enough to be saying things like girlfriend. Sounds too juvenile for him to be saying. Certainly less adult-like than wife. </p><p>“These are my parents, Don and Ellen.” </p><p>His mom is the first to react, glancing at her son as she quickly works to maintain the pleasantness in her expression, extending her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” </p><p>“Nice to meet you too…” You murmur back, almost deferential, embarrassed and not sure exactly what’s happening, only that it’s getting significantly more tense with every second that goes by. </p><p>Don offers a polite smile, one of his hands at his wife’s lower back, the other in his pocket as if he might have to physically restrain her. </p><p>Steve feels it just as much as you do and rubs his hand over his mouth, glancing quickly over at you. “We should head inside.” </p><p>-</p><p>The field is covered in hay and leaves of varying shades; reds and browns and yellows dotted by orange and green vines for as far as you can see. Beneath your footsteps and the heavy tread of tires of tractors towing people through the aisles of pumpkins, they crunch and swish, nearly drowning out the awkward trailing of your thoughts suspended on what just happened. Steve reaches for your hand, brushes his thumb along the back of your knuckles, then squeezes your fingers into his palm. </p><p>“Your hands are freezin.’” He frowns, speaking not quite loud enough for his parents to catch. They’re having their own simultaneous conversation, one you’ve been trying to hear as you walk through the pumpkin patch, pretending to look for one good enough to carve. </p><p>“Not much reason to have gloves down in Colombia. I didn’t think I’d need them.” </p><p>He looks into your face, then quickly looks away. </p><p>“I don’t even know what to say to him, Don.” His mother’s harsh voice is a little louder than a whisper, almost as if she doesn’t really care - or maybe even wants - if you hear. </p><p>“I know. I know.” </p><p>“I mean, she looks young enough to still be trick or treatin!’ I’m telling you, we need to call Connie, get her to talk some sense back into our son. We can’t just let him throw away years of marriage.”  </p><p>“I don’t like it anymore than you do, but he’s here now. Plottin’ against our son right in front of him might not be a good idea, don’t you think?” </p><p>You keep your eyes low to the ground, your cheeks burning with shame. You don’t dare look at Steve, certain that if you did, you might catch him going right along with it, smiling even, thinking it was funny. Connie’s a sore spot, the aching muscle beneath an ingrained bruise that hasn’t healed yet. They must have liked her a lot, loved her as their own daughter, and you’ve got nothing against them or even her for being spoken about in such a way. You understand that this must be a big and unexpected transition for them, especially since everything that had led up to their son’s divorce had happened in an entirely different country, in a place they weren’t able to access to dissect every mechanism of his life. </p><p>That still doesn’t make it feel any better. </p><p>‘He needs our help, Don. They both do.” </p><p>“I think it might be a good idea for you to stop talkin’ all together.” Steve snaps. </p><p>“Honey-” Ellen begins to placate, turning towards her son with a face full of pity and you think he might actually sneer at the sight of it, but you aren’t sure because you’re afraid to look directly at any of them, as if when you do, they’d descend.  </p><p>“Enough. We haven’t been here for more than five fuckin’ minutes and you’re already tryin’ to start something. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether you like her or not, but you will <em>not</em> talk badly about her in front of me.” </p><p>“Steve-” His father’s turn, this time, matching Steve’s anger. </p><p>“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear that-” He challenges, stepping forward, getting close enough to his father that the older man has to take a small step back. </p><p>Images flash, conjured up only by your imagination, of him pinning the DEA agent brave enough to say something about you to a wall. Of him pointing a gun in other men’s unsuspecting faces. The barrel of his pistol pressed against their jaws, his pointer finger on the trigger. Bouts of fury that make Steve dangerous, make him scary. </p><p>Steve’s mother moves the same time you do, placing her body between her husband’s and her son’s as you touch Steve’s arm, behind him, still, gentle, wanting nothing more than to get him away from this before it escalates. </p><p>You don’t want this for him, even though it’s what he’s getting. Whatever his relationship with his parents may be, you aren’t looking to be something that makes it messy, that puts any of them in a position they wouldn’t have been if you had just made an executive decision, if you had just said no to Steve when he offered. </p><p>He doesn’t move until Don does, and even then it’s only to scoff, to shake his head, to mutter a quick <em>I can’t believe this shit</em>, before turning back to you. </p><p>“Come on, sweetheart.” Steve, still holding your hand you realize - didn’t let it go even though he was ready to swing on his father - leads you away from his parents. </p><p>You look over your shoulder, trying to stay in step with his long paces, to see his mother rubbing Don’s back, putting balm on his wounded pride, no doubt consoling him with the fact that, to their belief, this won’t last very long, and that the Steve they know and the Steve they raised will come back to them soon, just as soon as he leaves that fucking country. </p><p>“What are we doing?” </p><p>“What we came here to do.” </p><p>“Shouldn’t we-” </p><p>Shouldn’t he apologize? Should you? They’re his parents. People important to him. They don’t like you, that much is apparent, but just walking away like this doesn’t feel right. Maybe if you tried speaking to them, they’d feel better. Probably not. Isn’t it worth trying, though? Shouldn’t you - </p><p>He stops, faces you just like he had earlier in your hotel room, still angry but calmer now. “I’m not gonna let them ruin this for you. I meant what I said, honey. If this ends up just bein’ me and you, that’s fine. You’re gettin’ your damn pumpkin.”</p><p>Is that really what all of this is about? </p><p>You nearly smile, not entirely out of amusement, but something close to it. The way he says it, the way he’s so serious about making today a good day for you, flooding your ribs with shaky - what? shaky devotion, maybe, shaky adoration. </p><p>You nod. He nods back. You continue walking. </p><p>-</p><p>The late October sunlight catches Steve’s hair. </p><p>Makes it look like strands of gold, of bright wheat, pushed in different directions from the cold wind. His cheeks are rosy, eyes bright and concentrated - squinting, inspecting. </p><p>Crouched down, far more serious about this pumpkin picking business than you thought he’d be earlier, you can’t stop yourself from thinking about how beautiful he is, how beneath all that gruff, sandpapery southerness and grit, there’s a man that cares deeply, perhaps too deeply, about the people around him. About his job. About you. </p><p>He lifts one by its stem, stands up. It’s about medium sized, bright orange and almost perfectly round - little patches of dried mud on it from sitting in the dirt - but an otherwise perfect looking pumpkin. Steve rotates it, studies it, then turns to look at you, holding it up. </p><p>“What about this one, baby?” </p><p>His parents left. Found you and returned very briefly to tell their son goodbye, sheepish and embarrassed. You only watched as he acknowledged them. No hug this time. No smiling. It’s settled itself at the base of your skull, these series of interactions. It’s almost frustrating the way they lie in wait, aware that eventually what has happened today will need to be discussed in more depth, that you’ll need to make room for a more serious conversation. At the same time, you want to enjoy yourself, to be here, in the moment, with Steve. Existing somewhere between ignoring and conceding. </p><p>You have to blink yourself out of your thoughts, stepping closer to get a look at it yourself, your cheeks hot as if he were privy to your thoughts, too. </p><p>You take it from him. “Who knew you’d be such an expert at this?” </p><p>“Yeah, well.” He drawls, scraping some dirt off of it with the fingernail of his thumb. “When you spend the majority of your Halloweens growin’ up in rural Tennessee and West Virginia, you get kinda good at these things.” </p><p>He won’t tell you about the firecrackers he’d hurriedly toss inside them with a bunch of his friends out in an open field, heart racing a mile a minute trying to stick the fucking thing in and shut the lid before the explosive went off, listening to the muted sizzle as the wick slowly began to burn before BOOM. The sky began raining Cucurbita guts. </p><p>Jesus, the way his mother hated when he did that. Kinda of ironic he grew up to be someone that enforces the law, someone that used to watch out for kids like himself. It makes him, bitterly, wonder that if his parents had given you half a chance, then maybe you’d be laughing about that now. Finding something out about him that he hadn’t had to tell you himself. Domestic and simple. Peaceful, even. </p><p>But nothing about this is normal. He won’t be able to make it domestic, even if he tried. There will always be this weird and twisting power dynamic. Age is one thing. Experiences are another. And his parents sense that. Sense the problem. He senses it, too, and it twists like a knife right below his diagram, the seriousness of it. The implications of it. </p><p>It’s fine, though, right? It’ll be fine. </p><p>“Hm. Pumpkin farmer would have been a good career choice for you, I think.” </p><p>Steve chuckles and the sound of it pools in the space at the bottom of your heart, warms it like candle wax. He might have to become one, with the way his job is going. “Better than chasin’ down pieces of shit like Pablo Escobar, that’s for sure.” </p><p>“More exciting too, I bet.” You grin, letting your mind float over the true meaning of what he was saying, letting it register only as a joke. </p><p>You both stand there for a second, in each other’s spaces, your fingers molded against the ridges of the fruit growing heavy in your arms, stuck somewhere between desperately keeping this light hearted and slipping into something else. </p><p>“Listen…I’m sorry about earlier, honey. I….I shoulda’ known that was gonna be a bad idea. And I’m sorry for the position I put you in.” </p><p>Apologies aren’t his strong suit. They make him uncomfortable, make it feel like a piece of cotton had been shoved down his throat. He doesn’t apologize often, and when he does they’re usually stilted and awkward and far more painful than it would be to just let the whole thing go. It had been that way with Connie. Not her fault. Not her fault at all, but it’s part of why things ended. He’d say he was sorry, try to be sincere - was sincere - but it just wasn’t enough. </p><p>He doesn’t want to make that same mistake with you. </p><p>“It’s okay, Steve. It was…a lot to throw onto them at once. </p><p>“They shouldn’t have been involved at all.” </p><p>You purse your lips. “Yeah, probably not, but you made me meet them, so…” </p><p>“Yeah,” Steve chuckles, looking away from you, the noise more like an exhale than anything near laughter because nothing about this is funny. “I’m battin’ a thousand here.” </p><p>“Hey.” The seriousness in your voice catches his attention. “It’s not your fault. We can talk about this later because right now all I want to do is go home and show off my master pumpkin carving skills.” </p><p>His expression softens into thinly veiled relief and mirth. “Your what?” </p><p>“I’ve been reigning champion for the better part of a decade, Murphy. I’m not about to let you steal my title.” </p><p>He shakes his head, then leans down until his forehead is against yours, your noses brushing. “You’re ridiculous.” </p><p>You shrug, tilting your head up. “And you’re gonna lose.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What’re you doin’?” </p>
<p>You look to the doorway at the sound of his voice. Steve stands leaning against the wooden frame on the beam closest to the bathroom mirror, holding a beer bottle that’s slowly sweating in his hand - some of the droplets collecting at the bottom of the amber glass and on his fingers where they’re loosely wrapped around its neck. His is about half-way full and his second for the night. Another one, yours, is unopened and enclosed in his fist. </p>
<p>You answer as you test the water, sticking your fingers underneath the faucet. “Running a bath.” </p>
<p>The agent steps further into the room and closes the door behind him. You’ve noticed that the green-blue haze of the bulbs makes him look more tired, slightly haggard, as if they were penetrating the already flimsy veneer he’s built out of coffee and ibuprofen and nicotine and disintegrating it completely - or at least stripping away the first layer, revealing the others hidden underneath that help him appear as a functioning human being and not as someone who’s seconds away from bloodying his fist on a paper towel dispenser. </p>
<p> He never ended up going to the hospital like you asked him to, saying something that kind of made sense if it wasn’t given too much hard thought about not wanting his minor breakdown flagged and brought to the attention of his higher ups. The visit would be processed through the agency’s health insurance and depending on what the doctors would find out, he’d likely be out of commission for another two weeks. Or, and this is the more likely scenario, out of a job entirely because he had been warned not to make another mistake like this again. So you get it. Messina had made it clear that this was the last fuck-up she’s willing to deal with, so having her find out that he’s slipped even further into this hole than before would mean unemployment and possible criminal charges. At least the bruising has started to yellow.</p>
<p>The bathroom, though, makes them look all that much worse. </p>
<p>He’d been meaning to call someone about it, about the fixtures in the apartment as a whole, actually. The windows allow for a lot of natural light to shine through in the day and Colombia’s got plenty of it, but at night half the time it’s like trying to navigate through a poorly lit maze -  relying on the vague haze of orange streetlights to get himself anywhere the curtains aren’t drawn and muscle memory anywhere they are. He had always thought the bathroom was placed in a strange spot, too; almost to the immediate left of the front door. It had nearly been a deal breaker when he and Connie had been looking for houses, but they settled on it anyway. The pros outweighed the cons. It’s in a safe enough neighborhood, a few blocks from the embassy, the neighbors are quiet, and before it no longer mattered, close to the hospital as well. </p>
<p>“I can see that. What I’m askin’ is why.” Steve sets his glass down on the sink and offers the unopened one to you, holding it out in your direction as he toes off his shoes. </p>
<p>This is the first real conversation you’re having all day. You’d been out - first to work, then to do some grocery shopping. Now that you’re here, frozen meals and leftovers aren’t cutting it. Your initial plan had been a ‘making sure he stays living and doesn’t starve to death’ maneuver rather than actually trying to feed him, so because you hadn’t anticipated that he’d ask you to stay, you hadn’t bothered with things like fresh fruit and vegetables. As it turns out, though, he’s pretty good at cooking. His mother had made him learn because it taught discipline and patience, as well as rid her of the responsibility of having to deal with the ducks he and his father would bring home after hunting. When he got to the academy his skills - although limited to a hot plate his roommates snagged and the common room microwave - had come in handy. They’ve been lying dormant until now, however. Connie did most of the cooking once they got married because she was home earlier than him, but he made up for it by doing the dishes and occasionally making breakfast. </p>
<p>You haven’t asked him whether it feels good to do it again or not. </p>
<p>You take the beer with an impish smile. “You should have just asked that, then.” </p>
<p>You’re theorizing that he’s gotten unused to doing things for the hell of it - for the pleasure of it - since Connie left. The last week and a half has given you ample opportunity to expand your research and so far the observations you’ve made have led you towards two frighteningly concerning conclusions. The first is that he’s way too invested in his work. And the second, more daunting finding is that because he’s so wrapped up in catching Pablo, he’s forgotten that there is more to life than sacrificing all the good things it has to offer in pursuit of some glorified purpose he may never achieve if he isn’t reminded to relax and to breathe. </p>
<p>The bar had been the first time he’d done that in a long time. An unhealthy indulgence with beer can breadcrumbs that follow him and his poor decision making wherever he goes. </p>
<p>So him asking why you’re doing what you’re doing instead of asking whether or not he can join is catalogued to be thought about and sorted later.  </p>
<p>“You can take one with me, if you want. I’m even adding epsom salt and bubbles. It’ll be good for your hands.” Rising to your feet, you take his free one in your own to look at his knuckles, cautious not to poke or prod the tender joints. “They’re looking better. How do they feel?” </p>
<p>“Like I’m not hitting anythin’ anytime soon.” Steve exhales, flexing his fingers. You haven’t talked about what happened in much detail - you said you wouldn’t ask and you’ve kept to your word, so you’ve relied heavily on what he says, both directly and within the context clues of what he does say. You can tell that he’s ashamed of what he did or something close to it. Moments pass where you’re certain that if you weren’t here he’d be slouched on his sofa in the dark, but ashamed might not be a good word to describe how he feels because you have a suspicion that he’d do it again in a heartbeat; maybe not punch out a box made of metal, but the idea is all the same. It might be that he’s guilty you’ve taken on the burden of worrying and caring for him that’s made Steve so disinterested in bringing any of the past few days up, like this is some kind of penance even though he isn’t the only one suffering it. </p>
<p>“Steve.” </p>
<p>“They feel fine, baby.” </p>
<p>You release his hand and move on to plug the drain. “Good, I’m glad.” You honestly are, but if you’re picking and choosing words carefully relieved would be the better descriptor. “So, is that a yes?” </p>
<p>“To what?” </p>
<p>“To joining me in the bathtub.” </p>
<p>He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Sure, if you want me to I will.” </p>
<p>“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t.” </p>
<p>Steve snorts and it’s sort of sad, one still borne of amusement but almost like he can’t believe you’d be telling the truth. Almost like he can’t believe that you want him near you regardless of everything else. He appreciates that you’re gentle with him, patient and willing to be explicit about what you need. You hadn’t been before - shy and making yourself small, it must have taken all the courage you could muster to turn around and tell him at that bar that you wanted him just as bad as he wanted you. Somewhere along the way, though, probably after he came to your coffee stand, the roles have reversed. You’re the one who knows what she needs while he’s still confused. </p>
<p>“Smartass.” </p>
<p>Your grin makes him grin too. “You’re rubbing off on me.” </p>
<p>The two of you get undressed. It isn’t some show, and if he were anyway else you’re sure that you’d have felt the need to make it one - to perform; self-conscious and embarrassed under such awful lighting and in front of eyes you know are looking. But he’s seen you this way before, has known you better than any man has, and hasn’t done anything other than worship the sight before him. </p>
<p>After all this, you suppose you’re something close to even, now. </p>
<p>Steve helps you out of your t-shirt, turns you around and unhooks your bra, then unclasps the necklace around your throat and sets it on the edge of the sink, far enough away from the drain that it won’t accidentally go sliding down it. </p>
<p>His fingers are warm, slow and gliding, unassuming, just touching. </p>
<p>Then he’s pulling off his shirt and the pile of clothing on the floor grows until you’re both bare and standing like fools in front of each other with goosebumps. </p>
<p>You get in first. Steve follows. </p>
<p>He’s hot and so is the water, so your body almost immediately blooms with heat, but it isn’t the uncomfortable suffocating kind. It’s the kind that seeps and makes you laugh a little because it reminds you of what it must be like if you were a bag of tea; relaxes your muscles until you’re loose enough to forget the things tightening them in the first place. </p>
<p>You lean back into his chest and close your eyes, then remember the beer he had given you earlier. </p>
<p>“Can you open this for me? Thank you.” </p>
<p>Steve takes the bottle from you and it opens with a quiet fizz. The cap makes a ‘ping’ noise when it hits the tile and you put it in your mind not to forget it’s there as he hands the drink back to you or else you’re sure you’ll find it in the middle of the night by walking blearily into the darkness, having stepped on it in your bare feet. </p>
<p>“I was thinking we should go somewhere tomorrow.” You murmur, lifting the beer to take a sip  and watching the water and soap suds slide down your forearm. </p>
<p>Steve runs his fingers up from your elbow to your wrist. “Yeah?” </p>
<p>You hum. “Yeah, like someplace that isn’t the grocery store. Someplace fun.” </p>
<p>“Like where?” </p>
<p>Your limited experience of Bogotá means you don’t have a lot of answers to give him. Many of your daily activities are simply the basics of living: eating, working, studying, and sleeping. When he approached you two weeks ago about participating in a STING, that had been the most your schedule deviated in a long time and to the very most extreme. Of course, now it’s all together different, but you hadn’t come away any more worldly than you had been before. </p>
<p>“I don’t know. A museum, maybe? A park.” You start, listing the general things you’ve heard your coworkers talk about or have visited yourself. “Or we could go get flowers from that one place! What’s it called? I can’t remember. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We just shouldn’t be inside all day. It isn’t healthy.” </p>
<p>“Yeah, we could do that.” Steve agrees. </p>
<p>You look over your shoulder at him in surprise. He hasn’t wanted to do a whole lot aside from drink and sleep and kiss you in between stressing over his job, so getting such an easy yes from him is startling. </p>
<p>“Oh. I was prepared to make an argument about this, but okay. If you’re really in, we can make a day of it.” </p>
<p>That’d be good for you both, you think, not just for him. You’re still very much trying to figure things out, attempting to strike a balance between the obstacles your age gap and his divorce have laid at your feet and finding a way to keep moving past them without causing things to get weird or fall apart. Spending time alone during your shifts has helped you in unpacking a few things, but you still aren’t anywhere close to figuring out whether this will work or if it won’t. God, you desperately want it to - you’d ignore all the flags if it meant they’d stay green for a little while longer. </p>
<p>So you don’t notice the looming conjunction in his voice until he doesn’t say anything else - doesn’t reaffirm it or make his own suggestion. </p>
<p>The bath water moves with you as you shift to look at him more evenly. “What?” </p>
<p>Steve places his beer bottle onto the floor. “Listen, baby. I’ve been meanin’ to talk to you about somethin.’” </p>
<p>“I’m not sure I like how ominous that sounds, but alright. Is something wrong? We don’t have to do anything if you’re not interested. I’m just trying to get us out of here for a bit. You’re going back to work soon and with-“</p>
<p>“No, it isn’t like that. You - You’ve heard me talk about Olivia before, right?” </p>
<p>You stop and nod, unsure where he’s going with this. By ‘heard’, he’s referring to the phone calls he’s had with his parents. They’re wondering about Connie, about the baby, and what that means in terms of custody and whether or not they’ll be able to see their grandchild. It’d be normal conversations to have if you didn’t feel so invasive while listening. “Yeah…”</p>
<p>“Connie’s bringing her down for the weekend, somethin’ about her sister needin’ to make room for her in-laws.” </p>
<p>You can connect the dots pretty quickly. </p>
<p>“Okay so…Olivia needs to come here. That’s a good thing, yeah?” </p>
<p>Wanting to ask more than that, but afraid to push, you wait for him to answer. The way he’s making it seem is that this isn’t so much a visit out of the goodness of Connie’s heart and rather one borne of necessity. Either way, you aren’t about to make this hard for him by complaining. Seeing Olivia could help him. </p>
<p>“You actually think that?” </p>
<p>“Yeah, I mean how do you want me to react, Steve? Should I be mad? Jealous? She’s your kid. We can do all those other things another time. Spend time with her while you can. I won’t get in the way.” </p>
<p>“It’s not about you gettin’ in the way with Olivia that I’m worried about.” </p>
<p>“Then what?” </p>
<p>He brings his hand to his face and rubs it over his mouth, clearly reticent to say it outloud. </p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>“Me and Connie? Does she even know I exist?” </p>
<p>“Christ, I don’t know, but I’m not trying to find out. Look, I don’t want this turnin’ into an argument. I’m just trying to say that maybe…shit - maybe you should go home.” </p>
<p>“Oh.” </p>
<p>You don’t live here. You know this. And you know that eventually, once he’s back on his feet, you’d be leaving. Yet your face still burns and you wish suddenly that you hadn’t accepted the beer he offered you because it’s only making this sensation and your humiliation worse. You could have and probably should have seen this coming. </p>
<p>“Only for the weekend. And I’m not tellin’ you to leave right this second, but Connie, she’s…”</p>
<p>“I get it, Steve. You don’t have to explain.” </p>
<p>You’re sitting up now, reaching over for the towel you have on the floor. Steve goes to grab your hand, but must decide against it or isn’t fast enough, you don’t know, because you’re already standing and getting out. </p>
<p>“No, I do because I’m not going to let you go the next three days with the wrong idea in your head about this.” He insists. </p>
<p>You start to dry yourself. “What wrong idea could I possibly have? I know how awkward and painful and different things would get if we ever came face to face.” </p>
<p>Steve says your name in protest, but you know he knows that you’re right. Still. </p>
<p>Stopping, you’re doing your best to not be upset. “God, okay, fine. Explain.” </p>
<p>He exhales, looks away from you and up at the ceiling, then somewhere that might be the wall. “I need her to think that I’m okay, alright? That I still got my shit together because I can’t-” </p>
<p>He stops, purses his lips, looks down. “So that means,” He starts again slowly. “I can’t go givin’ her any more reason to think that I can’t be there for our family.” </p>
<p>For her, you think, unsure if he’s added that in his head too. </p>
<p>You want to be both angry that he put it all to words when he didn’t need to and comfort him all the same. Instead you wrap the towel around your middle and go on to pick up your discarded clothing. “Which means that being seen with me would make that hard for you. I told you I understood. You’re just hurting my feelings by saying it out loud.” </p>
<p>Steve tilts his head to the side and makes a face, scrubbing his eyebrow. “That’s not what I’m sayin.’”</p>
<p>“It is, though. And that’s okay. I’m not delusional about this, whatever the hell it is. If me being here while she is makes it harder for you to make sure that Olivia stays in your life, who am I to demand that you take that risk?”  </p>
<p>“I’m only trying to protect you.” </p>
<p>He’s getting up now, has reached down and undone the drain and the water makes a gurgling sound that you almost laugh at because it’s nearly as ridiculous as all of this seems to be. </p>
<p>“From what? I like you a lot, Steve. And I like what we’ve been doing. Connie is your ex-wife and I know that’s weird and that you have a kid together and that I make things even more complicated. It’s fine. I’ll go. I’m pretty sure my plants are dying anyway. You don’t need to worry about it, but you need to be careful about your hands. The bruises are going to give you away.” </p>
<p>Steve looks down at them, barely concealing his annoyance. </p>
<p>You walk over to him and cup his cheek, regaining his attention. </p>
<p>“At least let me help you clean up.” </p>
<p>“Honey…” </p>
<p>“I came here to help you. Let me.” </p>
<p>He closes his eyes for a few seconds, then finally nods once he opens them. “Only because I know you’re not leavin’ without doing something.”  </p>
<p>“Guess you’re just stuck with me for a little while longer.” </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Is she coming here? Or are you going to her?” </p>
<p>You’re in the middle of adding whatever’s left of the forgotten liquor bottles he had scattered around the house to a black trash bag as you ask, purposefully maintaining your focus on not spilling anything or tearing the plastic; not only because it’d be a pain in the ass to clean up, but because you’re also slightly afraid of your question and the reaction it might get you. Steve’s in the kitchen adding dishes to the sink - the faucet is running and you’re not sure he’s heard you, but then it stops and so does your pulse before it starts to hammer in your chest. Neither of you have had much time to properly clean until now, so things are still a mess. He’ll get to the fridge and vacuuming once you leave, but for now the progress you’ve made is good enough. You’ll use that to ground you for whatever is about to come. </p>
<p>“I’m meeting her at the airport.” </p>
<p>“Yeah, but will she be <em>here</em> is what I mean.” </p>
<p>“I don’t know…maybe. Why?” </p>
<p>“I need to know whether or not I should leave anything…” </p>
<p>Steve steps out of the kitchen and stands there, looking at you. “What? Like a toothbrush?” </p>
<p>You shrug, trying to remain nonchalant even though this is something you’ve thought about since the first night you spent together. “Like a toothbrush.” </p>
<p>He pauses, suspicious. </p>
<p>“What’re you actually askin’ me?” </p>
<p>“I don’t know…” You echo his words. “I don’t know where we are yet or if we should be doing it at all and I’m afraid I’m overstepping our boundaries right now by even suggesting that something of mine stay in your house when we haven’t put a title on anything, all I know is that I don’t want for things to be worse for you because of me.” </p>
<p>“Honey, look at me.” </p>
<p>“Steve-” </p>
<p>You’re not anticipating the best, but look anyway as he gets closer to you, wiping his hands on a dish towel that he tosses onto the couch. </p>
<p>“The only thing you’ve done to my life is make it better. There’s nothin’ you could do that would make it worse.” </p>
<p>Aside from leaving. That’s a discussion for another time. </p>
<p>His words loosen your defenses. “You going soft on me, Murphy?” </p>
<p>He leans down, so close that your noses brush slightly, a crooked smile on his face. “Somethin’ like that…” </p>
<p>“Something like that…” You repeat, but before he can kiss you, you have to stop yourself because you know that it almost always leads to something neither of you can afford to be doing right now. </p>
<p>“I should get going.” </p>
<p>“Yeah…” Steve agrees and you hate the way it sounds - tired and sad and regretful. He steps back and pats his pockets. “Let me grab my keys.” </p>
<p>“Steve, my car’s here, remember?” </p>
<p>“Right. I’ll uh, I’ll see you…?” </p>
<p>Part of you hates how hard this is. Another loves it. “I have work on Monday, but I’ll try to make it over after my shift, okay?” </p>
<p>He nods, not sure what to do with himself. “Okay.” </p>
<p>“Or whenever. You should focus on Olivia. I’ll see you when I see you.” </p>
<p>You fill the gap between you again and pull Steve down to kiss him sweet and slow. You’re the first to lean away. He rests his forehead against your own, his hands on your hips. </p>
<p>“You got everything?” </p>
<p>“Just about, but I think I lost my favorite hair tie.” </p>
<p>“Well, I guess we gotta look for it now…” </p>
<p>“You’re not sly, Murphy.”</p>
<p>“Had to try one last time.” </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The airport isn’t busy. Not too many people are eager to be in the sky after Escobar’s stunt. Even still, it’s late on a Friday night and the gate her flight is arriving at is on the far side of the building, separated enough from the entrance and terminal that nearly no one is here aside from himself and a few others. </p>
<p>He stands off to the side with his hands in his pockets hating the way that he’s nervous. </p>
<p>She called him sometime after you left to make sure he hadn’t forgotten their plans to meet. It was the first time he heard her voice since before she left him aside from the very brief voicemail explaining the circumstances leading up to this and it hit him harder than he thought it would. To have gone through an entire separation without seeing or even speaking to one another hadn’t been something he truly considered the consequences of until just now when he’d have to look into her face and remind himself that she’s his ex-wife. </p>
<p>Not because he’d want to stifle the thought and title because he can’t accept it.</p>
<p>Not even because he still wants to be married. </p>
<p>He has to remind himself that she’s his ex-wife and the life he had built for the better part of a decade had come crumbling down around him because he had been a fucking idiot. And now he has the chance to start over and he cannot allow himself to make the same mistakes twice. </p>
<p>She is a walking, talking, breathing reminder of his shortcomings and maybe part of him will always love her, but she made her decision and he made his. </p>
<p>The gate comes to life and a head of blonde hair a little more than five and a half feet off the ground appears from inside the crowd of departing passengers along with the tufts of brown loose curls belonging to his daughter. </p>
<p>His first thought is that she’s gotten so big. </p>
<p>His second is that he wishes you were here. </p>
<p>Connie’s carrying two things of luggage counting Olivia’s changing bag and in her hand, pinched between her fingers, is her pacifier. They both look tired. </p>
<p>Steve meets her in the middle, murmurs a quick here let me get that and grabs the heaviest of her things and slings the baby bag over his shoulder. </p>
<p>They both sort of just stop and stare at each other after that until Connie finally breaks the ice. </p>
<p>“Hey.” </p>
<p>“Hi.” </p>
<p>“Um, so…everything she’ll need is already packed for her in case there isn’t anything left at the house…I made sure to pack a few more diapers and wipes than you’ll use, just in case you need them. Formula and bottles are in here. What else am I forgetting?”</p>
<p>“Connie…”</p>
<p>“Formula, diapers, bottles…” She lists, thinking and ignoring him. “Oh! Mr. Elephant is with her clothes. She doesn’t sleep without him, so-“ </p>
<p>“Connie, stop it. Enough.”</p>
<p>She looks at him, earnest and somewhat annoyed. “Stop what, Steve? I’m only trying to make sure you have everything.” </p>
<p>“I know what you’re doin’ and I want to tell you before you change your mind that I can handle it.” </p>
<p>“Handle it. You’re going to tell me that you can handle it? I’m sorry if I’m hesitant to believe that after all the shit you put us through you can magically figure things out for yourself.” </p>
<p>“Are you fuckin’ kidding me? I was doin’ my job to keep a roof over your heads, to pay our bills, makin’ sure that you were safe and taken care of.” </p>
<p>“Well it sure didn’t seem like it! While you went cruising around Bogotá in the middle of the night, doing whatever the hell it was you were doing, I was awake and taking care of our daughter. I worked, I cleaned. I did everything. I don’t know if I want to find out how you got the weekend off. Should I even ask?” </p>
<p>Steve points a finger at her, his temper flaring. “That’s none of your business.” </p>
<p>She’s riled up to say something, the venom in her expression enough to have him realizing his mistake, albeit too late. Connie gasps. “Jesus, Steve! What the hell happened to your hands?” </p>
<p>“Connie.” He warns, but she presses on anyway, alarmed. </p>
<p>“What did you do?” </p>
<p>“Nothin’ you need to worry about.” </p>
<p>“<em>Steve</em>-“ </p>
<p>“What do you want me to say? You’re not my wife anymore, Connie! I signed the goddamn papers.” </p>
<p>“I know! God, I know…” Her voice loses its sharpness and trails off into nothing. Olivia brings her hands to her face, curled into tiny fists, and starts to rub her eyes - the beginnings of a cry wrinkling her face. </p>
<p>He holds his hands out. “Let me take her.” </p>
<p>“Here.” Connie murmurs, handing Olivia to Steve - just as eager for their screaming match to end as the baby seems to be. </p>
<p>Steve coos a greeting, kisses the top of her head and closes his eyes, then takes a deep breath. </p>
<p>Connie watches and pretends she can’t feel the sting. </p>
<p>A beat passes. They’ve both calmed down. Steve speaks first this time. “You have a place to stay?” </p>
<p>She shoves her hands into her pockets. “I actually bought a round-trip ticket. My next flight leaves in an hour or two.” </p>
<p>He nods but must not school his expression fast enough because her own drops into disbelief. </p>
<p>“What? What’s the face for?”</p>
<p>“Nothing, I just thought…I don’t know what I thought, Connie.” </p>
<p>“Me neither.” </p>
<p>He watches her look down at her shoes. “God, Steve. There’s-”</p>
<p>There’s so much the both of them need to say to each other. To heal. To forgive. But neither of them refuse to concede - stubborn, hurt. </p>
<p>“Anyway, she’s tired. You should go home, get some rest. I’ll meet you back here on Monday to pick her up.” </p>
<p>“Okay.” Steve agrees softly. “Say bye to mommy. Say ‘bye, bye’” </p>
<p>They linger near each other for an awkward moment that doesn’t pass fast enough for either of them to come away from it feeling unscathed, unsure what to do now that departing doesn’t consist of a kiss and hug goodbye. </p>
<p>Connie kisses Olivia’s cheek, then steps back and adjusts the strap of her purse where it lays over her shoulder. Steve takes the second and last bag from her. </p>
<p>“I’ll call you if we need anything.” He assures. </p>
<p>“Yeah, okay.” </p>
<p>“Bye, Connie.” </p>
<p>“Bye, Steve.” </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>It’s Saturday. </p>
<p>Steve holds the eggshell colored receiver to his ear and hopes to Christ Almighty that you pick up.</p>
<p>It rings. One time. Then twice. And by the third and fourth dial tone he’s certain that he’ll be sent to voicemail. </p>
<p>He hasn’t spoken to you since you went home Thursday. You had promised to call once you got settled, but never did. Which, if he’s being honest with himself, he should have expected. Neither of you were in the best mood, but he’s sure springing this on you so fast hasn’t made things any better. He’s consoling himself with the idea that there’s a time and place for everything and that meeting his daughter and potentially his ex-wife shouldn’t happen in the middle of his mid-life crisis, but the thought is doing nothing to actually make him feel like he isn’t the asshole in this situation and that there was definitely no better way of handling things. </p>
<p>That’s typically how it goes for him, though. </p>
<p>“C’mon, pick up the goddamn phone.” </p>
<p>Pacing the living room with Olivia leaning on his left shoulder and using his right to keep the plastic tucked up to his ear, he isn’t even certain that he’s dialed your number, and he’s about to hang up and redial when the receiver suddenly clicks. </p>
<p>“Hello? Steve?” </p>
<p>“Hey, baby.” The relief in his voice makes him cringe. </p>
<p>“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” You look at your watch. It’s the middle of the day. “Why are you calling me?” </p>
<p>“I uh, Jesus, I had a plan for what I was gonna say to you once you answered, but I forgot what it was. I’m kinda a disaster over here, sweetheart.” </p>
<p>Olivia fusses, trying to squirm away. She’s been like this since waking up this morning and logically Steve knows that it makes sense for her not to be the giggly and sweet baby she was before she left. She’d gotten used to being around her mother, to being in certain environments. He doesn’t want to believe that it’s possible she’s forgotten who he is, except with more time that passes he’s thinking that she might have. Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier. You can hear him shush her even though he’s trying to be discreet about it, but it isn’t working. Worrying your thumbnail with your pointer finger, you’re wondering where this is going. </p>
<p>“Okay…?” </p>
<p>“How fast can you get over here?” </p>
<p>“What?” </p>
<p>“I mean - Christ. Connie knows what to do when she gets fussy like this and I lost Mr. Elephant-” </p>
<p>“I’m not Connie. Also, who?” </p>
<p>She isn’t there. You aren’t certain whether that’s entirely a relief. </p>
<p>“I know. I know that, baby, but she’s been cryin’ her head off for the last half hour and nothin’ I’m doing is working.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, Steve…” You’re hesitant only because you’re scared about what this will mean and how it will change things. The most experience you have with babies consists of the interactions you’ve had with the ones that come to the coffee stand with their parents. You like them and think they’re cute, but you’ve never had to help someone take care of one before - it’s daunting, and poses more questions than you’re ready to have answered about how this will alter your relationship with him. </p>
<p>“I’m not- Steve, I’ve never had to look after a baby. I don’t know what you expect me to do.” </p>
<p>“Please, honey. What if I beg? You gonna make me? I will, honey. I’ll get on my knees, I just need you over here.” </p>
<p>“Maybe. That’d be a sight to see.” </p>
<p>Olivia’s cry pierces whatever response he might have given you, sounding so upset and pitiful that you know what he’s said is true, so your reservations about this will just have to be placed on the backburner for now. </p>
<p>“I can be over in fifteen minutes.” </p>
<p>“Thank God. Alright, the door’s unlocked just let yourself in when you get here. Hey-” </p>
<p>You stop from hanging up the phone and bring it back to your ear. “Yeah?” </p>
<p>“Thank you.” </p>
<p>“Of course, Steve. Oh! Look for Mr. Elephant underneath the couch or somewhere there’s enough space for him to roll. He probably ended up under there if she threw him. I’ll see you when I get there. Bye.” </p>
<p>- </p>
<p>“Hello?” </p>
<p>“In here!” </p>
<p>You close the front door and set down your things. You can’t see them yet, but you can hear them, Olivia’s giggles floating down the hallway and into the other rooms. She’s clearly in a better mood than she had been when Steve called, which is good because you weren’t entirely sure what you would have done otherwise. </p>
<p>The pressure to meet his standards is still there, though. Whether he expects you to act as some step-in mother for Olivia, you have no idea, however it’s enough anyway is terrifying. You feel like you’re barely an adult yourself. </p>
<p>Setting down your purse and keys, you walk through the second doorway leading to the living room to find that he’s moved the coffee table so that there’s a space between the sofa and the wall the television is up against. In the area it used to be he’s laid down blankets. It’s clean, and smells good, which is a relief, with sunlight and the occasional breeze flowing in through the open window and curtains. Her toys are scattered around her body where she’s laying on her stomach, some of them lighting up and making noise. Steve’s got who you believe to be Mr. Elephant in his hand, laying down on his side next to her, making him fly like he’s piloting a jet. </p>
<p>He’s in a light cornflower blue dress shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans, has taken a shower and shaved, and most importantly looks more happy than he has in days. </p>
<p>You smile immediately. “Hey, what’s going on?” </p>
<p>“Mr. Elephant saved us from catastrophe.” Steve says as he sits up, grabs Olivia and walks over to you. “And you saved me from what was sure to be the biggest meltdown Bogota has ever seen.” </p>
<p>“Oh, well that’s good.” You laugh, waving your fingers at the infant cooing into the stuffed pachyderm’s fur. He makes introductions, waving Olivia’s tiny fist back at you and for a brief moment all your fears about her and this and him are gone and overwhelmed by just how cute she is. </p>
<p>“Hi, baby.” Steve, murmurs an actual greeting as he leans down and pecks you on the lips. You kiss him back and try to keep from embarrassing yourself by showing just how much it thrills you. </p>
<p>“Hi, how’d it go?” </p>
<p>A brave question, one you feel you have to ask anyway. </p>
<p>Steve raises his eyebrows and blows air out of his mouth. “It went.” </p>
<p>“That doesn’t sound good.” </p>
<p>You won’t pressure him to talk about it, but that fearful worry making its home in your abdomen heightens until it’s nearly impossible to ignore. You aren’t and never have been one of those people to make demands like this - to be jealous like this, but this is still all so new and shiny that it makes you nervous. They’d been together for years. This couldn’t have been easy. </p>
<p>“No, it wasn’t like that. It was…hard. We argued. Things got heated, but it’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine.” </p>
<p>“Are you okay? Like actually?” </p>
<p>“I’m alright.” This is the most sure he’s sounded since you talked to him on the phone. </p>
<p>“Well,” you reach up and tuck some of his hair behind his ear. It’s getting longer, curling around at the nape of his neck. “I’m glad you’re in a better mood.” </p>
<p>“Why shouldn’t I be? I got my girls.” He says it so casually, so easily that you’re afraid you’ve misheard him. </p>
<p>Your heart skips, and you find yourself only brave enough to ask him once to repeat what he said. “Your what?” </p>
<p>“Yeah.” His cheeks are just a little rosy. He feels it too. </p>
<p>“You and Olivia…” </p>
<p>“You’re my girls.”</p>
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